On the neighbour sum distinguishing index of planar graphs

Let $c$ be a proper edge colouring of a graph $G=(V,E)$ with integers $1,2,\ldots,k$. Then $k\geq \Delta(G)$, while by Vizing's theorem, no more than $k=\Delta(G)+1$ is necessary for constructing such $c$. On the course of investigating irregularities in graphs, it has been moreover conjectured that only slightly larger $k$, i.e., $k=\Delta(G)+2$ enables enforcing additional strong feature of $c$, namely that it attributes distinct sums of incident colours to adjacent vertices in $G$ if only this graph has no isolated edges and is not isomorphic to $C_5$. We prove the conjecture is valid for planar graphs of sufficiently large maximum degree. In fact even stronger statement holds, as the necessary number of colours stemming from the result of Vizing is proved to be sufficient for this family of graphs. Specifically, our main result states that every planar graph $G$ of maximum degree at least $28$ which contains no isolated edges admits a proper edge colouring $c:E\to\{1,2,\ldots,\Delta(G)+1\}$ such that $\sum_{e\ni u}c(e)\neq \sum_{e\ni v}c(e)$ for every edge $uv$ of $G$.Comment: 22 page

Group twin coloring of graphs

For a given graph $G$, the least integer $k\geq 2$ such that for every Abelian group $\mathcal{G}$ of order $k$ there exists a proper edge labeling $f:E(G)\rightarrow \mathcal{G}$ so that $\sum_{x\in N(u)}f(xu)\neq \sum_{x\in N(v)}f(xv)$ for each edge $uv\in E(G)$ is called the \textit{group twin chromatic index} of $G$ and denoted by $\chi'_g(G)$. This graph invariant is related to a few well-known problems in the field of neighbor distinguishing graph colorings. We conjecture that $\chi'_g(G)\leq \Delta(G)+3$ for all graphs without isolated edges, where $\Delta(G)$ is the maximum degree of $G$, and provide an infinite family of connected graph (trees) for which the equality holds. We prove that this conjecture is valid for all trees, and then apply this result as the base case for proving a general upper bound for all graphs $G$ without isolated edges: $\chi'_g(G)\leq 2(\Delta(G)+{\rm col}(G))-5$, where ${\rm col}(G)$ denotes the coloring number of $G$. This improves the best known upper bound known previously only for the case of cyclic groups $\mathbb{Z}_k$

Combinatorial nullstellensatz and its applications

In 1999, Noga Alon proved a theorem, which he called the Combinatorial Nullstellensatz, that gives an upper bound to the number of zeros of a multivariate polynomial. The theorem has since seen heavy use in combinatorics, and more specifically in graph theory. In this thesis we will give an overview of the theorem, and of how it has since been applied by various researchers. Finally, we will provide an attempt at a proof utilizing a generalized version of the Combinatorial Nullstellensatz of the GM-MDS Conjecture