A Proof of the Erd\"os - Faber - Lov\'asz Conjecture

Abstract

In 1972, Erd\"{o}s - Faber - Lov\'{a}sz (EFL) conjectured that, if $\textbf{H}$ is a linear hypergraph consisting of $n$ edges of cardinality $n$, then it is possible to color the vertices with $n$ colors so that no two vertices with the same color are in the same edge. In 1978, Deza, Erd\"{o}s and Frankl had given an equivalent version of the same for graphs: Let $G= \bigcup _{i=1}^{n} A_i$ denote a graph with $n$ complete graphs $A_1, A_2,$ $ \dots , A_n$, each having exactly $n$ vertices and have the property that every pair of complete graphs has at most one common vertex, then the chromatic number of $G$ is $n$. The clique degree $d^K(v)$ of a vertex $v$ in $G$ is given by $d^K(v) = |\{A_i: v \in V(A_i), 1 \leq i \leq n\}|$. In this paper we give an algorithmic proof of the conjecture using the symmetric latin squares and clique degrees of the vertices of $G$.