Neighbor sum distinguishing total choosability of planar graphs without adjacent special 5-cycles (Q2181224)

A total \(k\)-coloring of a graph \(G\) is a function \(\phi \colon V(G)\cup E(G)\rightarrow \{1,2,\dots ,k\}\) such that incident elements in \(V(G)\cup E(G)\) receive different colors. In a total \(k\)-coloring of \(G\), let \(w(v)\) denote the total sum of colors of the edges incident with \(v\) and the color of \(v\). If, for each edge \(uv\in E(G)\), \(w(u)\not = w(v)\), then we call such a total \(k\)-coloring neighbor sum distinguishing. Let \(\chi_{\sum}^{\prime\prime}(G)\) denote the smallest number \(k\) in such a coloring of \(G\). It has been conjectured that \(\chi_{\sum}^{\prime\prime}(G) \leq \Delta (G)+3\) for any simple graph \(G\) with maximum degree \(\Delta (G)\). In this research, a related parameter is considered. Let \(L_z\) be a set of lists of integer numbers, each of size \(k\) (with \(z\in V(G)\cup E(G)\)). The smallest \(k\) for which, for any specified collection of such lists, there exists a neighbor sum distinguishing total coloring using colors from \(L_z\) for each \(z\in V(G)\cup E(G)\), is called the neighbor sum distinguishing total choosability of \(G\), and is denoted by \(ch_{\sum}^{\prime\prime}(G)\). The author proves that \(ch_{\sum}^{\prime\prime}(G)\leq \Delta(G)+3\) for a planar graph \(G\) without adjacent special \(5\)-cycles and with \(\Delta(G)\geq 8\).