DP vertex-arboricity of sparse graphs

Abstract

The vertex arboricity $\mathrm{va}(G)$ of a multigraph $G$ is the minimum number $k$ for which $V(G)$ can be partitioned into $k$ subsets, each of which induces an acyclic subgraph of $G$. By definition, if $\mathrm{va}(G)= k$, then the chromatic number, $\chi(G)$, satisfies $k\leq \chi(G)\leq 2k$. Fundamental results by Borodin from 1976 and Bollob\'as and Manvel from 1979 imply an analog of Gallai's lower bound on the number of edges in a $(2k-1)$-critical graph. We consider a slight generalization of vertex arboricity in the setting of DP-coloring. Using this framework, we derive lower bounds on the number of edges in graphs critical for vertex arboricity and for list arboricity that are better than Gallai's bound, along with similar bounds in our DP-setting.