Rainbow Perfect and Near-Perfect Matchings in Complete Graphs with Edges Colored by Circular Distance

Published 11 Dec 2020 in math.CO and cs.DM | (2012.06083v1)

Abstract: Given an edge-colored complete graph $K_n$ on $n$ vertices, a perfect (respectively, near-perfect) matching $M$ in $K_n$ with an even (respectively, odd) number of vertices is rainbow if all edges have distinct colors. In this paper, we consider an edge coloring of $K_n$ by circular distance, and we denote the resulting complete graph by $K^{{\bullet}_n$.} We show that when $K^{\bullet}_n$ has an even number of vertices, it contains a rainbow perfect matching if and only if $n=8k$ or $n=8k+2$, where $k$ is a nonnegative integer. In the case of an odd number of vertices, Kirkman matching is known to be a rainbow near-perfect matching in $K^{{\bullet}_n$.} However, real-world applications sometimes require multiple rainbow near-perfect matchings. We propose a method for using a recursive algorithm to generate multiple rainbow near-perfect matchings in $K^{{\bullet}_n$.}