Journal of Mathematical Physics

Quantum chromatic number of products of quantum graphs

Rolando de Santiago, A. Meenakshi McNamara

Published Dec 1, 2025• 0 citations

Abstract

In this article, we define the Cartesian, Categorical, and Lexicographic, and Strong products of quantum graphs. We provide bounds on the quantum chromatic number of these products in terms of the quantum chromatic number of the factors. To adequately describe bounds on the lexicographic product of quantum graphs, we provide a notion of a quantum b-fold chromatic number for quantum graphs.

DOI: 10.1063/5.0248557

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Journal of Mathematical Physics

Quantum chromatic number of products of quantum graphs

Rolando de Santiago, A. Meenakshi McNamara

Published Dec 1, 2025• 0 citations

Publisher

Abstract

DOI: 10.1063/5.0248557

Related papers

Quantum chromatic numbers of products of quantum graphs

de Santiago, Rolando, A. Meenakshi McNamara

We define the Cartesian, Categorical, and Lexicographic, and Strong products of quantum graphs. We provide bounds on the quantum chromatic number of these products in terms of the quantum chromatic number of the factors. To adequately describe bounds on the lexicographic product of quantum graphs, we provide a notion of a quantum $b$ -fold chromatic number for quantum graphs.We define the Cartesian, Categorical, and Lexicographic, and Strong products of quantum graphs. We provide bounds on the quantum chromatic number of these products in terms of the quantum chromatic number of the factors. To adequately describe bounds on the lexicographic product of quantum graphs, we provide a notion of a quantum $b$-fold chromatic number for quantum graphs.

arXiv:2408.11911Aug 21, 20240 citations

The exact quantum chromatic number of Hadamard graphs

Meenakshi McNamara

We compute the exact value of the quantum chromatic numbers of Hadamard graphs of order $n=2^N$ for $N$ a multiple of $4$ using the upper bound derived by Avis, Hasegawa, Kikuchi, and Sasaki, as well as an application of the Hoffman-like lower bound of Elphick and Wocjan that was generalized by Ganesan for quantum graphs. As opposed to prior computations for the lower bound, our approach uses Ito's results on conjugacy class graphs allowing us to also find bounds on the quantum chromatic numbers of products of Hadamard graphs. In particular, we also compute the exact quantum chromatic number of the categorical product of Hadamard graphs.We compute the exact value of the quantum chromatic numbers of Hadamard graphs of order $n=2^N$ for $N$ a multiple of $4$ using the upper bound derived by Avis, Hasegawa, Kikuchi, and Sasaki, as well as an application of the Hoffman-like lower bound of Elphick and Wocjan that was generalized by Ganesan for quantum graphs. As opposed to prior computations for the lower bound, our approach uses Ito's results on conjugacy class graphs allowing us to also find bounds on the quantum chromatic numbers of products of Hadamard graphs. In particular, we also compute the exact quantum chromatic number of the categorical product of Hadamard graphs.

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b

-fold chromatic number for quantum graphs.

We compute the exact value of the quantum chromatic numbers of Hadamard graphs of order

n=2^N

for

N

a multiple of

4

using the upper bound derived by Avis, Hasegawa, Kikuchi, and Sasaki, as well as an application of the Hoffman-like lower bound of Elphick and Wocjan that was generalized by Ganesan for quantum graphs. As opposed to prior computations for the lower bound, our approach uses Ito's results on conjugacy class graphs allowing us to also find bounds on the quantum chromatic numbers of products of Hadamard graphs. In particular, we also compute the exact quantum chromatic number of the categorical product of Hadamard graphs.

H_n

with

2^n

vertices and

n

a multiple of

4

. In this paper, we consider the graphs in Hamming schemes, we determined the quantum chromatic numbers of one class of such graphs. Notably, this is the second known family of graphs whose quantum chromatic numbers are explicitly determined except for some cases aforementioned. We also provide some bounds for the quantum chromatic numbers of some other graphs in Hamming schemes. Consequently, we can obtain the quantum chromatic numbers of products of some graphs.

G,H

with

χ(G\times H) \leq 1538 < 1539 = \min(χ_q(G),χ_q(H)).

The graphs are obtained from Zhu's counterexample to Hedetniemi's conjecture by using a base graph for which the Lovász theta number of the complement, and not only the fractional chromatic number, is large. The lower bound for the first factor is the theta bound. For the second factor we adapt Zhu's argument to projections that do not commute: the step that fixes the colors of a clique is replaced by identities between operators. Both lower bounds hold for colorings by projections in an arbitrary nonzero unital

C^*

-algebra. Hence the conjecture also fails for the spatial, approximate, commuting-operator and

C^*

-algebraic variants of the quantum chromatic number. We also give smaller counterexamples certified by exact integer data. The graph constructions, the certificates and the counterexample statements in the projective formulation are formalized in Lean~4.