Lower Bound on the Maximum Denominator of Fractional Chromatic Numbers

What is the least integer $\text{sd}(n)$ such that every graph on $n$ vertices has fractional chromatic number $p /q$, where $p$ and $q$ are positive integers and $q \le \text{sd}(n)$? An upper bound on the determinants of Hadamard matrices implies that $\text{sd}(n)\le 2^{-n}(n+1)^{(n+1) /2}$. The only known lower bound on $\text{sd}(n)$ that is exponential in $n$ (asymptotically, roughly $1.346^n/\sqrt{\log n}$) was obtained using an iterated Mycielski construction [D. C. Fisher, J. Graph Theory 20 (1995), 403-409]. We improve on this bound by constructing a family of graphs which shows that $\text{sd}(n) \geq 2^{n/2}$.

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Journal
The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics
Published
2026-05-21
DOI
https://doi.org/10.37236/14524
Primary Topic
Image Retrieval and Classification Techniques
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article
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article

Lower Bound on the Maximum Denominator of Fractional Chromatic Numbers

Tomáš Kaiser, Jean‐Sébastien Sereni, Karolína Hylasová, Marthe Bonamy
The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics
Image Retrieval and Classification Techniques
article

Lower Bound on the Maximum Denominator of Fractional Chromatic Numbers

Tomáš Kaiser, Jean‐Sébastien Sereni, Karolína Hylasová, Marthe Bonamy
article en

Abstract

What is the least integer $\text{sd}(n)$ such that every graph on $n$ vertices has fractional chromatic number $p /q$, where $p$ and $q$ are positive integers and $q \le \text{sd}(n)$? An upper bound on the determinants of Hadamard matrices implies that $\text{sd}(n)\le 2^{-n}(n+1)^{(n+1) /2}$. The only known lower bound on $\text{sd}(n)$ that is exponential in $n$ (asymptotically, roughly $1.346^n/\sqrt{\log n}$) was obtained using an iterated Mycielski construction [D. C. Fisher, J. Graph Theory 20 (1995), 403-409]. We improve on this bound by constructing a family of graphs which shows that $\text{sd}(n) \geq 2^{n/2}$.

The Electronic Journal of CombinatoricsVol. 33(2)
Laboratoire des Sciences de l'Ingénieur, de l'Informatique et de l'Imagerie (FR), Laboratoire Bordelais de Recherche en Informatique (FR), University of West Bohemia in Pilsen (CZ)
Openalex Percentile: Top 100%
Image Retrieval and Classification Techniques
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Lower Bound on the Maximum Denominator of Fractional Chromatic Numbers — Tomáš Kaiser, Jean‐Sébastien Sereni, et al. · The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics (2026) | TGRS Research Map | TGRS