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Relating the total domination number and the annihilation number for quasi-trees and some composite graphs

The total domination number $γ_{t}(G)$ of a graph $G$ is the cardinality of a smallest set $D\subseteq V(G)$ such that each vertex of $G$ has a neighbor in $D$. The annihilation number $a(G)$ of $G$ is the largest integer $k$ such that there exist $k$ different vertices in $G$ with the degree sum at most $m(G)$. It is conjectured that $γ_{t}(G)\leq a(G)+1$ holds for every nontrivial connected graph $G$. The conjecture has been proved for graphs with minimum degree at least $3$, trees, certain tree-like graphs, block graphs, and cactus graphs. In the main result of this paper it is proved that the conjecture holds for quasi-trees. The conjecture is verified also for some graph constructions including bijection graphs, Mycielskians, and the newly introduced universally-identifying graphs.