On a conjecture about the strong odd chromatic number of planar graphs

Abstract: A proper coloring of a graph $G$ is said to be a strong odd coloring of $G$, if for every vertex $v$ and every color $c$, either $c$ appears on an odd number of vertices in the neighborhood of $v$ or $c$ is absent in the neighborhood of $v$. The strong odd chromatic number of $G$ is defined as the smallest integer $k$ for which $G$ admits a strong odd coloring using $k$ colors. In this paper, we evaluate the strong odd chromatic number of join of cycles and empty graphs and one point union of graphs. Using these results, we construct infinite family of planar graphs that serves as counter examples to a recent conjecture regarding the upper bound of the strong odd chromatic number of planar graphs.