Interval edge-colorings of composition of graphs

Abstract

An edge-coloring of a graph $G$ with consecutive integers $c_{1},\ldots,c_{t}$ is called an \emph{interval $t$-coloring} if all colors are used, and the colors of edges incident to any vertex of $G$ are distinct and form an interval of integers. A graph $G$ is interval colorable if it has an interval $t$-coloring for some positive integer $t$. The set of all interval colorable graphs is denoted by $\mathfrak{N}$. In 2004, Giaro and Kubale showed that if $G,H\in \mathfrak{N}$, then the Cartesian product of these graphs belongs to $\mathfrak{N}$. In the same year they formulated a similar problem for the composition of graphs as an open problem. Later, in 2009, the first author showed that if $G,H\in \mathfrak{N}$ and $H$ is a regular graph, then $G[H]\in \mathfrak{N}$. In this paper, we prove that if $G\in \mathfrak{N}$ and $H$ has an interval coloring of a special type, then $G[H]\in \mathfrak{N}$. Moreover, we show that all regular graphs, complete bipartite graphs and trees have such a special interval coloring. In particular, this implies that if $G\in \mathfrak{N}$ and $T$ is a tree, then $G[T]\in \mathfrak{N}$.