List coloring in general graphs

Abstract

In this thesis we explore some of the relatively new approaches to the problem of list-coloring graphs. This is a problem that has its roots in classical graph theory, but has developed an entire theory of its own, that uses tools from structural graph theory, probabilistic approaches, as well as heuristic and algorithmic approaches. This thesis details two approaches one can take to understand list-coloring and prove results for several classes of graphs; one of them is to use the idea of graph kernels, and the other is to look at list-edge-coloring. In this thesis we present the state-of-the-art research on these two problems. We begin by setting up definitions and preliminaries, and then go into each of these two topics in turn. Along the way we briefly mention some of the very new research on the topics, including some new approaches developed for the purpose of writing this thesis. We finish with a survey of some of the major open problems that still remain in the area.