Circular Coloring

In graph theory, circular coloring may be viewed as a refinement of usual graph coloring. The circular chromatic number of a graph, denoted can be given by any of the following definitions, all of which are equivalent (for finite graphs).

1. is the infimum over all real numbers so that there exists a map from to a circle of circumference 1 with the property that any two adjacent vertices map to points at distance along this circle.
2. is the infimum over all rational numbers so that there exists a map from to the cyclic group with the property that adjacent vertices map to elements at distance apart.
3. In an oriented graph, declare the imbalance of a cycle to be divided by the minimum of the number of edges directed clockwise and the number of edges directed counterclockwise. Define the imbalance of the oriented graph to be the maximum imbalance of a cycle. Now, is the minimum imbalance of an orientation of .

It is relatively easy to see that (especially using 1. or 2.), but in fact . It is in this sense that we view circular chromatic number as a refinement of the usual chromatic number.

Circular coloring was originally defined by Vince (1988), who called it "star coloring".

Coloring is dual to the subject of nowhere-zero flows and indeed, circular coloring has a natural dual notion: circular flows.