On the b-Coloring of Cographs and P4-Sparse Graphs

A b-coloring of a graph is a coloring such that every color class admits a vertex adjacent to at least one vertex receiving each of the colors not assigned to it. The b-chromatic number of a graph G, denoted by χb(G), is the maximum number t such that G admits a b-coloring with t colors. A graph G is b-continuous if it admits a b-coloring with t colors, for every $$t = \chi(G), \ldots, \chi_b(G)$$ . We define a graph G to be b-monotonic if χb(H1) ≥ χb(H2) for every induced subgraph H1 of G, and every induced subgraph H2 of H1. In this work, we prove that P4-sparse graphs (and, in particular, cographs) are b-continuous and b-monotonic. Besides, we describe a dynamic programming algorithm to compute the b-chromatic number in polynomial time within these graph classes.