The chromatic polynomial of an unlabeled graph

Abstract

We investigate the chromatic polynomial χ(G, λ) of an unlabeled graph G. It is shown that $\text{χ(G, λ) = (}\text{1}\text{|A(g)|}\text{) Σ}{}_{\mathrm{\pi \; \in \; A(g)}}\text{χ(g, π, λ)}$, where g is any labeled version of G, A(g) is the automorphism group of g and χ(g, π, λ) is the chromatic polynomial for colorings of g fixed by π. The above expression shows that χ(G, λ) is a rational polynomial of degree n = |V(G)| with leading coefficient $\text{1}\text{|A(g)|}$. Though χ(G, λ) does not satisfy chromatic reduction, each polynomial χ(g, π, λ) does, thus yielding a simple method for computing χ(G, λ). We also show that the number N(G) of acyclic orientations of G is related to the argument λ = −1 by the formula $\text{N(G) = (}\text{1}\text{|A(g)|}\text{) Σ}{}_{\mathrm{\pi \; \in \; A(g)}}\text{(−1)}{}^{\mathrm{s(\pi )}}\text{χ(g, π, −1)}$, where s(π) is the number of cycles of π. This information is used to derive Robinson's (“Combinatorial Mathematics V” (Proc. 5th Austral. Conf. 1976), Lecture Notes in Math. Vol. 622, pp. 28–43, Springer-Verlag, New York/Berlin, 1977) cycle index sum equations for counting unlabeled acyclic digraphs.