Graphs that are Critical for the Packing Chromatic Number

Given a graph G, a coloring c : V (G) → {1, …, k} such that c(u) = c(v) = i implies that vertices u and v are at distance greater than i, is called a packing coloring of G. The minimum number of colors in a packing coloring of G is called the packing chromatic number of G, and is denoted by χρ(G). In this paper, we propose the study of χρ-critical graphs, which are the graphs G such that for any proper subgraph H of G, χρ(H) < χρ(G). We characterize χρ-critical graphs with diameter 2, and χρ-critical block graphs with diameter 3. Furthermore, we characterize χρ-critical graphs with small packing chromatic number, and we also consider χρ-critical trees. In addition, we prove that for any graph G and every edge e ∈ E(G), we have (χρ(G)+1)/2 ≤ χρ(G−e) ≤ χρ(G), and provide a corresponding realization result, which shows that χρ(G − e) can achieve any of the integers between these bounds.