Star colouring and locally constrained graph homomorphisms

Dvo\v{r}\'ak, Mohar and \v{S}\'amal (J. Graph Theory, 2013) proved that for every 3-regular graph $G$, the line graph of $G$ is 4-star colourable if and only if $G$ admits a locally bijective homomorphism to the cube $Q3$. We generalise this result as follows: for $p\geq 2$, a $K{1,p+1}$-free $2p$-regular graph $G$ admits a $(p + 2)$-star colouring if and only if $G$ admits a locally bijective homomorphism to a fixed $2p$-regular graph named $G{2p}$. We also prove the following: (i) for $p\geq 2$, a $2p$-regular graph $G$ admits a $(p + 2)$-star colouring if and only if $G$ has an orientation $\vec{G}$ that admits an out-neighbourhood bijective homomorphism to a fixed orientation $\vec{G{2p}}$ of $G2p$; (ii) for every 3-regular graph $G$, the line graph of $G$ is 4-star colourable if and only if $G$ is bipartite and distance-two 4-colourable; and (iii) it is NP-complete to check whether a planar 4-regular 3-connected graph is 4-star colourable.