Abstract:
Every planar graph is known to be acyclically 7-choosable and is conjectured to be acyclically 5-choosable (Borodin et al., 2002). This conjecture, if proved, would imply both Borodin's acyclic 5-color theorem (1979) and Thomassen's 5-choosability theorem (1994). However, as yet it has been verified only for several restricted classes of graphs. Some sufficient conditions are also obtained for a planar graph to be acyclically 4- and 3-choosable. In particular, a planar graph of girth at least 7 is acyclically 3-colorable (Borodin, Kostochka, and Woodall, 1999) and acyclically 3-choosable (Borodin et al., 2009).
A natural measure of sparseness, introduced by Erdős and Steinberg, is the absence of $k$-cycles, where $4\le k\le S$. Here, we prove that every planar graph with no cycles with length from 4 to 12 is acyclically 3-choosable. Bibl. 18.