Graphs with bounded maximum average degree and their neighbor sum distinguishing total-choice numbers (Q1751539)

Summary: Let \(G\) be a graph and \(\phi : V(G) \cup E(G) \rightarrow \{1,2, 3, \ldots, k \}\) be a \(k\)-total coloring. Let \(w(v)\) denote the sum of color on a vertex \(v\) and colors assigned to edges incident to \(v\). If \(w(u) \neq w(v)\) whenever \(u v \in E(G)\), then \(\phi\) is called a neighbor sum distinguishing total coloring. The smallest integer \(k\) such that \(G\) has a neighbor sum distinguishing \(k\)-total coloring is denoted by \(\mathrm{tndi}_{\Sigma}(G)\). \textit{A. J. Dong} and \textit{G. H. Wang} [Acta Math. Sin., Engl. Ser. 30, No. 4, 703--709 (2014; Zbl 1408.05061)] obtained the results about \(\mathrm{tndi}_{\Sigma}(G)\) depending on the value of maximum average degree. A \(k\)-assignment \(L\) of \(G\) is a list assignment \(L\) of integers to vertices and edges with \(\left|L(v)\right| = k\) for each vertex \(v\) and \(\left|L(e)\right| = k\) for each edge \(e\). A total-\(L\)-coloring is a total coloring \(\phi\) of \(G\) such that \(\phi(v) \in L(v)\) whenever \(v \in V(G)\) and \(\phi(e) \in L(e)\) whenever \(e \in E(G)\). We state that \(G\) has a neighbor sum distinguishing total-\(L\)-coloring if \(G\) has a total-\(L\)-coloring such that \(w(u) \neq w(v)\) for all \(u v \in E(G)\). The smallest integer \(k\) such that \(G\) has a neighbor sum distinguishing total-\(L\)-coloring for every \(k\)-assignment \(L\) is denoted by \(\mathrm{Ch}_{\Sigma}^{\prime\prime}(G)\). In this paper, we strengthen results by Dong and Wang [loc. cit.] by giving analogous results for \(\mathrm{Ch}_{\Sigma}^{\prime\prime}(G)\).