For a connected graph $G=(V,E)$ and a set $S\subseteq V\left(G\right)$ with at least two vertices, an $S$-Steiner tree is a subgraph $T=(V^{\text{'}},E^{\text{'}})$ of $G$ that is a tree with $S\subseteq V^{\text{'}}$. If the degree of each vertex of $S$ in $T$ is equal to 1, then $T$ is called a pendant $S$-Steiner tree. Two $S$-Steiner trees are if they share no vertices other than $S$ and have no edges in common. For $S\subseteq V\left(G\right)$ and $\left|S\right|\ge 2$, the pendant tree-connectivity ${\tau }_G\left(S\right)$ is the maximum number of internally disjoint pendant $S$-Steiner trees in $G$, and for $k\ge 2$, the $k$-pendant tree-connectivity ${\tau }_k\left(G\right)$ is the...

A graph $G$ is a $k$-tree if either $G$ is the complete graph on $k+1$ vertices, or $G$ has a vertex $v$ whose neighborhood is a clique of order $k$ and the graph obtained by removing $v$ from $G$ is also a $k$-tree. Clearly, a $k$-tree has at least $k+1$ vertices, and $G$ is a 1-tree (usual tree) if and only if it is a $1$-connected graph and has no $K_3$-minor. In this paper, motivated by some properties of 2-trees, we obtain a characterization of $k$-trees as follows: if $G$ is a graph with at least $k+1$ vertices, then $G$ is...

The Sombor index $SO\left(G\right)$ of a graph $G$ is the sum of the edge weights $\sqrt{d_G^2\left(u\right)+d_G^2\left(v\right)}$ of all edges $uv$ of $G$, where $d_G\left(u\right)$ denotes the degree of the vertex $u$ in $G$. A connected graph $G=(V,E)$ is called a quasi-tree if there exists $u\in V\left(G\right)$ such that $G-u$ is a tree. Denote $𝒬(n,k)=\{G:G$ is a quasi-tree graph of order $n$ with $G-u$ being a tree and $d_G\left(u\right)=k\}$. We determined the minimum and the second minimum Sombor indices of all quasi-trees in $𝒬(n,k)$. Furthermore, we characterized the corresponding extremal graphs, respectively.

Let $T$ be a tree. Then a vertex of $T$ with degree one is a leaf of $T$ and a vertex of degree at least three is a branch vertex of $T$. The set of leaves of $T$ is denoted by $L\left(T\right)$ and the set of branch vertices of $T$ is denoted by $B\left(T\right)$. For two distinct vertices $u$, $v$ of $T$, let $P_T[u,v]$ denote the unique path in $T$ connecting $u$ and $v.$ Let $T$ be a tree with $B\left(T\right)\ne \varnothing$. For each leaf $x$ of $T$, let $y_x$ denote the nearest branch vertex to $x$. We delete $V\left(P_T[x,y_x]\right)\setminus \left\{y_x\right\}$ from $T$ for all $x\in L\left(T\right)$. The resulting subtree of $T$ is called the reducible stem...

We consider random dynamics on the edges of a uniform Cayley tree with $n$ vertices, in which edges are either flammable, fireproof, or burnt. Every flammable edge is replaced by a fireproof edge at unit rate, while fires start at smaller rate $n^{-\alpha }$ on each flammable edge, then propagate through the neighboring flammable edges and are only stopped at fireproof edges. A vertex is called fireproof when all its adjacent edges are fireproof. We show that as $n\to \infty$, the terminal density of fireproof...

Let G be a graph of order n and size m. A γ-labeling of G is a one-to-one function f:V(G) → 0,1,2,...,m that induces a labeling f’: E(G) → 1,2,...,m of the edges of G defined by f’(e) = |f(u)-f(v)| for each edge e = uv of G. The value of a γ-labeling f is $val\left(f\right)={\Sigma }_{e\in E\left(G\right)}{f}^{\text{'}}K\left(e\right)$. The maximum value of a γ-labeling of G is defined as $va{l}_{max}\left(G\right)=maxval\left(f\right):fisa\gamma -labelingofG$; while the minimum value of a γ-labeling of G is $va{l}_{min}\left(G\right)=minval\left(f\right):fisa\gamma -labelingofG$; The values $va{l}_{max}\left(S_{p,q}\right)$ and $va{l}_{min}\left(S_{p,q}\right)$ are determined for double stars $S_{p,q}$. We present characterizations of connected graphs G of order n for which...

A graph $G=(V,E)$ is called improperly $(d_1,\cdots ,d_k)$-colorable if the vertex set $V$ can be partitioned into subsets $V_1,\cdots ,V_k$ such that the graph $G\left[V_i\right]$ induced by the vertices of $V_i$ has maximum degree at most $d_i$ for all $1\le i\le k$. In this paper, we mainly study the improper coloring of $1$-planar graphs and show that $1$-planar graphs with girth at least $7$ are $(2,0,0,0)$-colorable.

Let $L(n,d)$ denote the minimum possible number of leaves in a tree of order $n$ and diameter $d.$ Lesniak (1975) gave the lower bound $B(n,d)=\lceil 2(n-1)/d\rceil$ for $L(n,d).$ When $d$ is even, $B(n,d)=L(n,d).$ But when $d$ is odd, $B(n,d)$ is smaller than $L(n,d)$ in general. For example, $B(21,3)=14$ while $L(21,3)=19.$ In this note, we determine $L(n,d)$ using new ideas. We also consider the converse problem and determine the minimum possible diameter of a tree with given order and number of leaves.

The line graph of a graph $G$, denoted by $L\left(G\right)$, has $E\left(G\right)$ as its vertex set, where two vertices in $L\left(G\right)$ are adjacent if and only if the corresponding edges in $G$ have a vertex in common. For a graph $H$, define ${\overline{\sigma }}_2\left(H\right)=min\{d\left(u\right)+d\left(v\right):uv\in E\left(H\right)\}$. Let $H$ be a 2-connected claw-free simple graph of order $n$ with $\delta \left(H\right)\ge 3$. We show that, if ${\overline{\sigma }}_2\left(H\right)\ge \frac{1}{7}(2n-5)$ and $n$ is sufficiently large, then either $H$ is traceable or the Ryjáček’s closure $\mathrm{cl}\left(H\right)=L\left(G\right)$, where $G$ is an essentially $2$-edge-connected triangle-free graph that can be contracted to one of the two graphs of order 10...

A proper coloring $c:V\left(G\right)\to \{1,2,...,k\}$, $k\ge 2$ of a graph $G$ is called a graceful $k$-coloring if the induced edge coloring $c^{\text{'}}:E\left(G\right)\to \{1,2,...,k-1\}$ defined by $c^{\text{'}}\left(uv\right)=|c\left(u\right)-c\left(v\right)|$ for each edge $uv$ of $G$ is also proper. The minimum integer $k$ for which $G$ has a graceful $k$-coloring is the graceful chromatic number ${\chi }_g\left(G\right)$. It is known that if $T$ is a tree with maximum degree $\Delta$, then ${\chi }_g\left(T\right)\le \lceil \frac{5}{3}\Delta \rceil$ and this bound is best possible. It is shown for each integer $\Delta \ge 2$ that there is an infinite class of trees $T$ with maximum degree $\Delta$ such that ${\chi }_g\left(T\right)=\lceil \frac{5}{3}\Delta \rceil$. In particular, we investigate for each...