Degree-choosability of proper conflict-free list coloring of sparse graphs
Abstract
Given a graph and a mapping , an -list assignment of is a function that maps each to a set of at least colors. For an -list assignment of a graph , a proper conflict-free -coloring of is a proper coloring of such that for every vertex , and some appears precisely once in the neighborhood of . We say that is proper conflict-free -choosable if for every -list assignment of , there exists a proper conflict-free -coloring of . If is proper conflict-free -choosable and there is a constant such that for every vertex of , then we say is proper conflict-free -choosable. In this paper, we consider graphs with a bounded maximum average degree. We show that every graph with the maximum average degree less than is proper conflict-free -choosable, and that every graph with the maximum average degree less than is proper conflict-free -choosable. As a result, every planar graph with girth at least is proper conflict-free -choosable, and every planar graph with girth at least is proper conflict-free -choosable.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2601.15611,
title = {Degree-choosability of proper conflict-free list coloring of sparse graphs},
author = {Masaki Kashima and Riste Škrekovski and Rongxing Xu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.15611},
year = {2026}
}