Coloring Digraphs with Forbidden Cycles

Abstract

Let $k$ and $r$ be two integers with $k \ge 2$ and $k\ge r \ge 1$. In this paper we show that (1) if a strongly connected digraph $D$ contains no directed cycle of length $1$ modulo $k$, then $D$ is $k$-colorable; and (2) if a digraph $D$ contains no directed cycle of length $r$ modulo $k$, then $D$ can be vertex-colored with $k$ colors so that each color class induces an acyclic subdigraph in $D$. The first result gives an affirmative answer to a question posed by Tuza in 1992, and the second implies the following strong form of a conjecture of Diwan, Kenkre and Vishwanathan: If an undirected graph $G$ contains no cycle of length $r$ modulo $k$, then $G$ is $k$-colorable if $r\ne 2$ and $(k+1)$-colorable otherwise. Our results also strengthen several classical theorems on graph coloring proved by Bondy, Erd\H{o}s and Hajnal, Gallai and Roy, Gy\'arf\'as, etc.