Secure domination and secure total domination in graphs

A secure (total) dominating set of a graph G = (V; E) is a (total) dominating set X V with the property that for each u 2 V X, there exists x 2 X adjacent to u such that (X fxg) [ fug is (total) dominating. The smallest cardinality of a secure (total) dominating set is the secure (total) domination number s(G) ( st(G)). We characterize graphs with equal total and secure total domination numbers. We show that if G has minimum degree at least two, then st(G) s(G). We also show that st(G) is at most twice the clique covering number of G, and less than three times the independence number. With the exception of the independence number bound, these bounds are sharp.