Given a 3-colorable graph $X$, the 3-coloring complex $B(X)$ is the graph whose vertices are all the independent sets which occur as color classes in some 3-coloring of $X$. Two color classes $C,D \in V(B(X))$ are joined by an edge if $C$ and $D$ appear together in a 3-coloring of $X$. The graph $B(X)$ is 3-colorable. Graphs for which $B(B(X))$ is isomorphic to $X$ are termed reflexive graphs. In this paper, we consider 3-edge-colorings of cubic graphs for which we allow half-edges. Then we consider the 3-coloring complexes of their line graphs. The main result of the paper is a surprising outcome that the line graph of any connected cubic triangle-free outerplanar graph is reflexive. We also exhibit some other interesting classes of reflexive line graphs.
[1]
Bojan Mohar,et al.
Kempe Equivalence of Edge‐Colorings in Subcubic and Subquartic Graphs
,
2010,
J. Graph Theory.
[2]
Daniel J. Kleitman,et al.
Helly-type theorems about sets
,
1980,
Discret. Math..
[3]
B. Mohar.
Kempe Equivalence of Colorings
,
2006
.
[4]
J. Whelan,et al.
Pictures
,
2006,
The 1903 Lowell Lectures.
[5]
Steve Fisk.
Cobordism and functoriality of colorings
,
1980
.
[6]
Daniël Paulusma,et al.
Kempe Equivalence of Colourings of Cubic Graphs
,
2015,
Electron. Notes Discret. Math..
[7]
Stanley Fiorini.
On the chromatic index of outerplanar graphs
,
1975
.