A better performance guarantee for approximate graph coloring

Approximate graph coloring takes as input a graph and returns a legal coloring which is not necessarily optimal. We improve the performance guarantee, or worst-case ratio between the number of colors used and the minimum number of colors possible, toO(n(log logn)³/(logn)³), anO(logn/log logn) factor better than the previous best-known result.The work of the first author was supported by Air Force Grant AFOSR-86-0078 and NSF PYI Grant 8657527-CCR. The work of the second author was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship.