Avoiding and extending partial edge colorings of hypercubes

Abstract

We consider the problem of extending and avoiding partial edge colorings of hypercubes; that is, given a partial edge coloring $\varphi$ of the $d$-dimensional hypercube $Q_d$, we are interested in whether there is a proper $d$-edge coloring of $Q_d$ that agrees with the coloring $\varphi$ on every edge that is colored under $\varphi$; or, similarly, if there is a proper $d$-edge coloring that disagrees with $\varphi$ on every edge that is colored under $\varphi$. In particular, we prove that for any $d\geq 1$, if $\varphi$ is a partial $d$-edge coloring of $Q_d$, then $\varphi$ is avoidable if every color appears on at most $d/8$ edges and the coloring satisfies a relatively mild structural condition, or $\varphi$ is proper and every color appears on at most $d-2$ edges. We also show that the same conclusion holds if $d$ is divisible by $3$ and every color class of $\varphi$ is an induced matching. Moreover, for all $1 \leq k \leq d$, we characterize for which configurations consisting of a partial coloring $\varphi$ of $d-k$ edges and a partial coloring $\psi$ of $k$ edges, there is an extension of $\varphi$ that avoids $\psi$.