Symmetric Chromatic Polynomial of Trees

Abstract

In a 1995 paper Richard Stanley defined $X_G$, the symmetric chromatic polynomial of a Graph $G=(V,E)$. He then conjectured that $X_G$ distinguishes trees; a conjecture which still remains open. $X_G$ can be represented as a certain collection of integer partitions of $|V|$ induced by each $S\subseteq E$, which is very approachable with the aid of a computer. Our research involved writing a computer program for efficient verification of this conjecture for trees up to 23 vertices. In this process, we also gather trees with matching collections of integer partitions of a fixed number of parts. For each $k=2, 3, 4, 5$, we provide the smallest pair of trees whose partitions of $k$ parts agree. In 2013, Orellana and Scott give a proof of a weaker version of Stanely's conjecture for trees with one centroid. We prove a similar result for arbitrary trees, and provide examples to show that this result, combined with that of Orellana and Scott, is optimal.