The hereditary-family polychromatic coloring conjecture

From papers

Let F\mathcal F be a hereditary family of hypergraphs. For k1k\ge1, let mk(F)m_k(\mathcal F) be the smallest integer mm such that every mm-heavy hypergraph in F\mathcal F has a polychromatic kk-coloring, with mk(F)=m_k(\mathcal F)=\infty if no such integer exists. Hereditary-family polychromatic coloring conjecture. If

m2(F)<,m_2(\mathcal F)<\infty,

then

mk(F)<m_k(\mathcal F)<\infty

for every k2k\ge2. The conjecture is known when m2(F)=2m_2(\mathcal F)=2, in which case Berge proved mk(F)=km_k(\mathcal F)=k for every kk; it is open in general, and the hereditary hypothesis is necessary.

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Primary source

Gábor Damásdi, Balázs Keszegh, János Pach, Dömötör Pálvölgyi and Géza Tóth, “Coloring Geometric Hypergraphs: A Survey”, arXiv:2512.09509 (2025).

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