On the adjacent-vertex-distinguishing-total colouring of graphs

The adjacent-vertex-distinguishing-total-colouring (AVD-total-colouring) problem was introduced and studied by Zhang et al. around 2005. This problem consists in associating colours to the vertices and edges of a graph G=(V(G),E(G)) using the least number of colours, such that: (i) any two adjacent vertices or adjacent edges receive distinct colours; (ii) each vertex receive a colour different from the colours of its incident edges; and (iii) for any two adjacent vertices u,v of G, the set of colours that color u and its incident edges is distinct from the set of colours that color v and its incident edges. The smallest number of colours for which a graph G admits an AVD-total-colouring is named its AVD-total chromatic number. Zhang et al. determined the AVD-total chromatic number for some classical families of graphs and noted that all of them admit an AVD-total-colouring with no more than Delta(G)+3 colours. Based on this observation, the authors conjectured that Delta(G)+3 colours would be sufficient to construct an AVD-total-colouring for any simple graph G. This conjecture is called the AVD-Total-Colouring Conjecture and remains open for arbitrary graphs, having been verified for a few families of graphs. In this dissertation, we present an overview of the main existing results related to the AVD-total-colouring of graphs. Furthermore, we determine the AVD-total-chromatic number for the following families of graphs: simple graphs with Delta(G)=3 and without adjacent vertices of maximum degree; flower-snarks; Goldberg snarks; generalized Blanusa snarks; Loupekine snarks; and complete equipartite graphs of even order. We verify that the graphs of these families have AVD-total-chromatic number at most Delta(G)+2. Additionally, we verify that the AVD-Total-Colouring Conjecture is true for tripartite graphs and complete equipartite graphs of odd order. These results confirm the validity of the AVD-Total-Colouring Conjecture for all the families considered in this dissertation (AU)