Graphs with Tiny Vector Chromatic Numbers and Huge Chromatic Numbers
Uriel Feige, Michael L. Langberg, Gideon Schechtman · SIAM Journal on Computing · 2004
Karger, Motwani, and Sudan [J. ACM, 45 (1998), pp. 246--265] introduced the notion of a vector coloring of a graph. In particular, they showed that every k-colorable graph is also vector k-colorable, and that for constant k, graphs that are vector k-colorable can be colored by roughly $\Delta^{1 - 2/k}$ colors. Here $\Delta$ is the maximum degree in the graph and is assumed to be of the order of $n^{\delta}$ for some $0 < \delta < 1$. Their results play a major role in the best approximation algorithms used for coloring and for maximum independent sets. We show that for every positive integer k there are graphs that are vector k-colorable but do not have independent sets significantly larger than $n/\Delta^{1 - 2/k}$ (and hence cannot be colored with significantly fewer than $\Delta^{1 - 2/k}$ colors). For $k = O(\log n/\log\log n)$ we show vector k-colorable graphs that do not have independent sets of size (log n) c , for some constant c. This shows that the vector chromatic number does not approximate the chromatic number within factors better than n/polylog n. As part of our proof, we analyze "property testing" algorithms that distinguish between graphs that have an independent set of size n/k, and graphs that are "far" from having such an independent set. Our bounds on the sample size improve previous bounds of Goldreich, Goldwasser, and Ron [J. ACM, 45 (1998), pp. 653--750] for this problem.