Proper Vertex Connection and Graph Operations

Abstract

A path in a vertex-colored graph is a vertex-proper path if any two internal adjacent vertices differ in color. A vertex-colored graph is proper vertex k-connected if any two vertices of the graph are connected by k disjoint vertex-proper paths of the graph. For a k-connected graph G, the proper vertex k-connection number of G, denoted by pvc k (G), is defined as the smallest number of colors required to make G proper vertex k-connected. A vertex-colored graph is strong proper vertexconnected, if for any two vertices u, v of the graph, there exists a vertex-proper u-v geodesic. For a connected graph G, the strong proper vertex-connection number of G, denoted by spvc(G), is the smallest number of colors required to make G strong proper vertex-connected. In this paper, we study the proper vertex k-connection number and the strong proper vertex-connection number on the join of two graphs, the Cartesian, lexicographic, strong and direct product, and present exact values or upper bounds for these operations of graphs.