Total Proper Connection and Graph Operations

A graph is said to be total-colored if all the edges and vertices of the graph are colored. A path in a total-colored graph is a total proper path if (i) any two adjacent edges on the path differ in color, (ii) any two internal adjacent vertices on the path differ in color, and (iii) any internal vertex of the path differs in color from its incident edges on the path. A total-colored graph is called total-proper connected if any two vertices of the graph are connected by a total proper path of the graph. For a connected graph [Formula: see text], the total proper connection number of [Formula: see text], denoted by [Formula: see text], is defined as the smallest number of colors required to make [Formula: see text] total-proper connected. In this paper, we study the total proper connection number for the graph operations. We find that 3 is the total proper connection number for the join, the lexicographic product and the strong product of nearly all graphs. Besides, we study three kinds of graphs with one factor to be traceable for the Cartesian product as well as the permutation graphs of the star and traceable graphs. The values of the total proper connection number for these graphs are all [Formula: see text].

NOTE ON MINIMUM DEGREE AND PROPER CONNECTION NUMBER

An edge-coloured graph $G$ is called properly connected if any two vertices are connected by a properly coloured path. The proper connection number, $pc(G)$ , of a graph $G$ , is the smallest number of colours that are needed to colour $G$ such that it is properly connected. Let $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FF}(n)$ denote the minimum value such that $pc(G)=2$ for any 2-connected incomplete graph $G$ of order $n$ with minimum degree at least $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FF}(n)$ . Brause et al. [‘Minimum degree conditions for the proper connection number of graphs’, Graphs Combin.33 (2017), 833–843] showed that $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FF}(n)>n/42$ . In this note, we show that $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FF}(n)>n/36$ .

Proper connection of power graphs of finite groups

Let [Formula: see text] be a finite group. The power graph of [Formula: see text] is the undirected graph whose vertex set is [Formula: see text], and two distinct vertices are adjacent if one is a power of the other. The reduced power graph of [Formula: see text] is the subgraph of the power graph of [Formula: see text] obtained by deleting all edges [Formula: see text] with [Formula: see text], where [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] are two distinct elements of [Formula: see text]. In this paper, we determine the proper connection number of the reduced power graph of [Formula: see text]. As an application, we also determine the proper connection number of the power graph of [Formula: see text].