A Note on The Vertex-Distinguishing Proper Total Coloring of Graphs.

Jingwen Li1, Zhiwen Wang2, Zhongfu Zhang1, Enqiang Zhu1, Fei Wen1, Hongjie Wang1
1Institute of Applied Mathematics, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, Lanzhou 730070, P.R.China
2 School of Mathematics and Computer Sciences, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, P.R.China

Abstract

Let \(G\) be a simple graph of order \(p \geq 2\). A proper \(k\)-total coloring of a simple graph \(G\) is called a \(k\)-vertex distinguishing proper total coloring (\(k\)-VDTC) if for any two distinct vertices \(u\) and \(v\) of \(G\), the set of colors assigned to \(u\) and its incident edges differs from the set of colors assigned to \(v\) and its incident edges. The notation \(\chi_{vt}(G)\) indicates the smallest number of colors required for which \(G\) admits a \(k\)-VDTC with \(k \geq \chi_{vt}(G)\). For every integer \(m \geq 3\), we will present a graph \(G\) of maximum degree \(m\) such that \(\chi_{vt}(G) < \chi_{vt}(H)\) for some proper subgraph \(H \subseteq G\).