A new upper bound for total colourings of graphs (Q1842182)

This paper improves on an earlier paper by the author together with the reviewer, and presents a new upper bound for the total chromatic number \(\chi_ T\) of a graph, which is of interest for small values of the (vertex) chromatic number \(\chi\). It is shown that \(\chi_ T\leq \chi_ e+ \lceil \chi/3\rceil+ 1\), where \(\chi_ e\) denotes the edge chromatic number.