On Calculating the Chromatic Symmetric Function

Abstract

This paper investigates methods for calculating the chromatic symmetric function (CSF) of a graph in chromatic-bases and the $m_\lambda$-basis. Our key contributions include a novel approach for calculating the CSF in chromatic-bases constructed from forests and an efficient method for determining the CSF in the $m_\lambda$-basis. As applications, we present combinatorial proofs for two known theorems that were originally established using algebraic techniques. Additionally, we demonstrate that an algorithm introduced by Aliste-Prieto, de Mier, Orellana, and Zamora can be viewed as a case of our proposed method.