Neighbour$\,$–$\,$Distinguishing Edge Colourings of Random Regular Graphs

Abstract

A proper edge colouring of a graph is neighbour-distinguishing if for all pairs of adjacent vertices $v$, $w$ the set of colours appearing on the edges incident with $v$ is not equal to the set of colours appearing on the edges incident with $w$. Let ${\rm ndi}(G)$ be the least number of colours required for a proper neighbour-distinguishing edge colouring of $G$. We prove that for $d\geq 4$, a random $d$-regular graph $G$ on $n$ vertices asymptotically almost surely satisfies ${\rm ndi}(G)\leq \lceil 3d/2\rceil$. This verifies a conjecture of Zhang, Liu and Wang for almost all 4-regular graphs.