Adjacent vertex distinguishing edge coloring of planar graphs without 3-cycles

Abstract

The adjacent vertex distinguishing edge coloring of a graph [Formula: see text] is a proper edge coloring of [Formula: see text] such that the color sets of any pair of adjacent vertices are distinct. The minimum number of colors required for an adjacent vertex distinguishing edge coloring of [Formula: see text] is denoted by [Formula: see text]. It is observed that [Formula: see text] when [Formula: see text] contains two adjacent vertices of degree [Formula: see text]. In this paper, we prove that if [Formula: see text] is a planar graph without 3-cycles, then [Formula: see text]. Furthermore, we characterize the adjacent vertex distinguishing chromatic index for planar graphs of [Formula: see text] and without 3-cycles. This improves a result from [D. Huang, Z. Miao and W. Wang, Adjacent vertex distinguishing indices of planar graphs without 3-cycles, Discrete Math. 338 (2015) 139–148] that established [Formula: see text] for planar graphs without 3-cycles.