Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
The point-arboricity ρ (G) of a graph G is defined as the minimum number of subsets into which the point set V(G) of G may be partitioned so that each subset induces an acyclic subgraph. Equivalently, the point-arboricity of G may be defined as the least number of colours needed to colour the points of G so that no cycle of G has all of its points coloured the same. This term was introduced by Chartrand, Geller, and Hedetniemi [1], although the concept was first considered by Motzkin [4].
As with the chromatic number of a graph G, which we denote by χ(G), there is no explicit formula for the point-arboricity of a graph. However, Nordhaus and Gaddum [5] have shown that if G is a graph with p points, then