Linear bounds on nowhere-zero group irregularity strength and nowhere-zero group sum chromatic number of graphs

TL;DR

This paper establishes linear upper bounds on the group irregularity strength and related graph invariants, improving previous exponential bounds and providing specific bounds for trees and planar graphs.

Contribution

It proves that the group irregularity strength is at most linear in the number of vertices, specifically not exceeding 2n, and introduces bounds for locally irregular labelings.

Findings

s_g(G) ≤ 2n for any graph G

Provided bounds for trees and planar graphs

Established upper bounds for locally irregular labelings

Abstract

We investigate the \textit{group irregularity strength}, $s_g(G)$, of a graph, i.e. the least integer $k$ such that taking any Abelian group $\mathcal{G}$ of order $k$, there exists a function $f:E(G)\rightarrow \mathcal{G}$ so that the sums of edge labels incident with every vertex are distinct. So far the best upper bound on $s_g(G)$ for a general graph $G$ was exponential in $n-c$, where $n$ is the order of $G$ and $c$ denotes the number of its components. In this note we prove that $s_g(G)$ is linear in $n$, namely not greater than $2n$. In fact, we prove a stronger result, as we additionally forbid the identity element of a group to be an edge label or the sum of labels around a vertex. We consider also locally irregular labelings where we require only sums of adjacent vertices to be distinct. For the corresponding graph invariant we prove the general upper bound: $\Delta(G)+{\rm col}(G)-1$ (where ${\rm col}(G)$ is the coloring number of $G$) in the case when we do not use the identity element as an edge label, and a slightly worse one if we additionally forbid it as the sum of labels around a vertex. In the both cases we also provide a sharp upper bound for trees and a constant upper bound for the family of planar graphs.