Locally irregular edge-coloring of subcubic graphs

Abstract

A graph is locally irregular if no two adjacent vertices have the same degree. A locally irregular edge-coloring of a graph G is such an (improper) edge-coloring that the edges of any fixed color induce a locally irregular subgraph. Among the graphs admitting a locally irregular edge-coloring, i.e., decomposable graphs, only one is known to require 4 colors, while for all the others it is believed that 3 colors suffice. In this paper, we prove that decomposable claw-free graphs with maximum degree 3, all cycle permutation graphs, and all generalized Petersen graphs admit a locally irregular edge-coloring with at most 3 colors. We also discuss when 2 colors suffice for a locally irregular edge-coloring of cubic graphs and present an infinite family of cubic graphs of girth 4 which require 3 colors.