Locating-total dominating sets in twin-free graphs: a conjecture

TL;DR

This paper investigates locating-total dominating sets in twin-free graphs, proposing a conjecture that their size is at most two-thirds of the number of vertices, and proves it for specific graph classes.

Contribution

The paper introduces a conjecture on the upper bound of locating-total dominating sets in twin-free graphs and proves it for graphs without 4-cycles.

Findings

Confirmed the conjecture for graphs without 4-cycles.

Established an upper bound of 3/4n for twin-free graphs.

Extended understanding of domination parameters in special graph classes.

Abstract

A total dominating set of a graph $G$ is a set $D$ of vertices of $G$ such that every vertex of $G$ has a neighbor in $D$. A locating-total dominating set of $G$ is a total dominating set $D$ of $G$ with the additional property that every two distinct vertices outside $D$ have distinct neighbors in $D$; that is, for distinct vertices $u$ and $v$ outside $D$, $N(u) \cap D \ne N(v) \cap D$ where $N(u)$ denotes the open neighborhood of $u$. A graph is twin-free if every two distinct vertices have distinct open and closed neighborhoods. The location-total domination number of $G$, denoted $LT(G)$, is the minimum cardinality of a locating-total dominating set in $G$. It is well-known that every connected graph of order $n \geq 3$ has a total dominating set of size at most $\frac{2}{3}n$. We conjecture that if $G$ is a twin-free graph of order $n$ with no isolated vertex, then $LT(G) \leq \frac{2}{3}n$. We prove the conjecture for graphs without $4$-cycles as a subgraph. We also prove that if $G$ is a twin-free graph of order $n$, then $LT(G) \le \frac{3}{4}n$.