Neighbor Sum Distinguishing Edge Coloring of Subcubic Graphs

A proper edge-k-coloring of a graph G is a mapping from E（G） to {1, 2,..., k} such that no two adjacent edges receive the same color. A proper edge-k-coloring of G is called neighbor sum distinguishing if for each edge uv ∈ E（G）, the sum of colors taken on the edges incident to u is different from the sum of colors taken on the edges incident to v. Let χΣ'（G） denote the smallest value k in such a coloring of G. This parameter makes sense for graphs containing no isolated edges（we call such graphs normal）. The maximum average degree mad（G） of G is the maximum of the average degrees of its non-empty subgraphs. In this paper, we prove that if G is a normal subcubic graph with mad（G） <5/2,then χΣ'（G） ≤ 5. We also prove that if G is a normal subcubic graph with at least two 2-vertices, 6 colors are enough for a neighbor sum distinguishing edge coloring of G, which holds for the list version as well.