Improved bounds for coloring locally sparse hypergraphs

We show that, for every $k \ge 2$, every $k$-uniform hypergaph of degree $\Delta$ and girth at least $5$ is efficiently $(1+o(1) )(k-1) (\Delta / \ln \Delta )^{ 1/(k-1) }$-list colorable. As an application (and to the best of our knowledge) we obtain the currently best algorithm for list-coloring random hypergraphs of bounded average degree.