The concept of rainbow connection was introduced by Chartrand et al. [14] in 2008. It is interesting and recently quite a lot papers have been published about it. In this survey we attempt to bring together most of the results and papers that dealt with it. We begin with an introduction, and then try to organize the work into five categories, including (strong) rainbow connection number, rainbow k-connectivity, k-rainbow index, rainbow vertex-connection number, algorithms and computational complexity. This survey also contains some conjectures, open problems and questions.

Rainbow Connections of Graphs: A Survey

The rainbow connection number, rc(G), of a connected graph G is the minimum number of colours needed to colour its edges, so that every pair of its vertices is connected by at least one path in which no two edges are coloured the same. In this note we show that for every bridgeless graph G with radius r, rc(G) <= r(r + 2). We demonstrate that this bound is the best possible for rc(G) as a function of r, not just for bridgeless graphs, but also for graphs of any stronger connectivity. It may be noted that for a general 1-connected graph G, rc(G) can be arbitrarily larger than its radius (Star graph for instance). We further show that for every bridgeless graph G with radius r and chordality (size of a largest induced cycle) k, rc(G) <= rk. 
It is known that computing rc(G) is NP-Hard [Chakraborty et al., 2009]. Here, we present a (r+3)-factor approximation algorithm which runs in O(nm) time and a (d+3)-factor approximation algorithm which runs in O(dm) time to rainbow colour any connected graph G on n vertices, with m edges, diameter d and radius r.

Rainbow Connection Number and Radius

The rainbow connection number, rc(G), of a connected graph G is the minimum number of colours needed to colour its edges, so that every pair of its vertices is connected by at least one path in which no two edges are coloured the same. In this note we show that for every bridgeless graph G with radius r, rc(G) ≤ r(r + 2). We demonstrate that this bound is the best possible for rc(G) as a function of r, not just for bridgeless graphs, but also for graphs of any stronger connectivity. It may be noted that for a general 1-connected graph G, rc(G) can be arbitrarily larger than its radius (K 1,n for instance). We further show that for every bridgeless graph G with radius r and chordality (size of a largest induced cycle) k, rc(G) ≤ rk. Hitherto, the only reported upper bound on the rainbow connection number of bridgeless graphs is 4n/5 ? 1, where n is order of the graph (Caro et al. in Electron J Comb 15(1):Research paper 57, 13, 2008). It is known that computing rc(G) is NP-Hard (Chakraborty and fischer in J Comb Optim 1---18, 2009). Here, we present a (r + 3)-factor approximation algorithm which runs in O(nm) time and a (d + 3)-factor approximation algorithm which runs in O(dm) time to rainbow colour any connected graph G on n vertices, with m edges, diameter d and radius r.

An edge-colored graph $$G$$
 is rainbow connected if every two vertices are connected by a path whose edges have distinct colors. It is known that deciding whether a given edge-colored graph is rainbow connected is NP-complete. We will prove that it is still NP-complete even when the edge-colored graph is a planar bipartite graph. A vertex-colored graph is rainbow vertex-connected if every two vertices are connected by a path whose internal vertices have distinct colors. It is known that deciding whether a given vertex-colored graph is rainbow vertex-connected is NP-complete. We will prove that it is still NP-complete even when the vertex-colored graph is a line graph.

Note on the Hardness of Rainbow Connections for Planar and Line Graphs

Rainbow connections for outerplanar graphs with diameter 2 and 3

The rainbow connection number, $rc(G)$, of a connected graph $G$ is the minimum number of colors needed to color its edges, so that every pair of vertices is connected by at least one path in which no two edges are colored the same. Our main result is that $rc(G)\leq \lceil\frac{n}{2}\rceil$ for any 2-connected graph with at least three vertices. We conjecture that $rc(G)\leq n/\kappa+C$ for a $\kappa$-connected graph $G$ of order $n$, where $C$ is a constant, and prove the conjecture for certain classes of graphs. We also prove that $rc(G)\leq(2+\varepsilon)n/\kappa+23/\varepsilon^2$ for any $\varepsilon>0$.

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Sujuan Liu

Papers

Rainbow Connection Number and Connectivity