Distance graphs with maximum chromatic number

Abstract

International audience Let $D$ be a finite set of integers. The distance graph $G(D)$ has the set of integers as vertices and two vertices at distance $d ∈D$ are adjacent in $G(D)$. A conjecture of Xuding Zhu states that if the chromatic number of $G (D)$ achieves its maximum value $|D|+1$ then the graph has a clique of order $|D|$. We prove that the chromatic number of a distance graph with $D=\{ a,b,c,d\}$ is five if and only if either $D=\{1,2,3,4k\}$ or $D=\{ a,b,a+b,a+2b\}$ with $a \equiv 0 (mod 2)$ and $b \equiv 1 (mod 2)$. This confirms Zhu's conjecture for $|D|=4$.