1. Introduction
The total number of matchings of agraph is a graphic invariant which is important in structural chemistry. In the chemistry literature this graphic invariant is called the Hosoya index of a molecular graph. It was applied to correlations with boiling points, entropies, calculated bond orders, as well as for coding of chemical structures [1] [2] [3] . Therefore, the ordering of molecular graphs in terms of their Hosoya indices is of interest in chemical thermodynamics. Let
be a graph with vertex
and edge set
.
The matching polynomial of G is defined as
where
the number of its k-matchings. It is convenient to denote
and
for
. Its theory is well elaborated [4] [5] . The Hosoya index of G, denoted by
, is defined as the sum of all the numbers of its matchings, namely
Let
be the collection of connected simple graphs of order n and size m. Checking the structure of G in
, it is easy to see that if
, then G contains at least
cycles. And these graphs is called unicyclic graphs, bicyclic graphs, tricyclic graphs, tetracyclic graphs,
, respectively. Liu et al. [6] determined the tetracyclic graphs has at least 4 cycles andat most 15 cycles but has no 9 cycles.
The first chemical application of
was proposed in 1971 by a chemist Hosoya, which was used to describe the thermodynamic properties of saturated hydrocarbons. Wanger and Gutman [7] gave a summary of the Hosoya index of graphs. Hosoya index conducted important research on the progress of its research. And Wanger [1] proved among all n-vertex, the path Pn has the maximum Hosoya index and the star Sn has the minimum Hosoya index. Ou [8] and [9] studied the unicyclic has the maximum and minimum Hosoya index. Deng [10] and [11] studied the bicyclic has the maximum and minimum Hosoya index. Huang et al. [12] give sharp bounds on the Hosoya index for connected graphs of fixed size. Liu et al. [13] determined the maximum Hosoya index of unicyclic graphs with n vertices and diameter 3 or 4. Their results somewhat answer a question proposed by Wagner and Gutman. In 2010 for unicyclic graphs with small diameter. Liu et al. [14] determined the maximum Hosoya index of tricyclic graphs and the correspond-ing extremal graphs. Li et al. [15] determined the minimum Hosoya index of tricyclic graphs and the corresponding extremal graphs.
In this paper, we are organized as follows. In Section 1, we present some preliminaries and list of some previously known results about Hosoya indices of graphs. In Section 1, we determine the second fourth Hosoya indices of a kind of tetracyclic graph. In final section, we give a brief summary of this paper.
2. Preliminaries
In this section, we introduced some notations and definitions form traditional graph theory, not described here, we refer to [16] . We present some definitions and lemmas to prove the main results later.
Let
be a simple connected graph with vertex set
and edge set
. Let
be the collection of connected simple graphs of order n and size m. Checking the structure of G in
, it is easy to see that if
, then G contains at least
cycles. And these graphs is called unicyclic graphs, bicyclic graphs, tricyclic graphs, tetracyclic graphs,
. If
, we denote by
the subgraph of G obtained by deleting the vertices of W and the edges incident with them. Similarly, if
, we denote by
the subgraph of G obtained by deleting the edges of E. If
and
, we write
and
instead of
and
, respectively. Denote the neighborhood of
by
; and let
.
is vertex v of degree in G. Through out the paper we denote by
the n-vertex graph equals to the path, cycle, forest, tree, star, let
be the graph obtained by two vertex attaching to two pedant vertex in
, respectively. For two connected graphs
with
, let
be a graph defined by
,
,
.
In the following we introduce some graph transformation which does not increase the Hosoya index of a graph.
Lemma 2.1. ( [14] ) The Hosoya index of a graph satisfies the following identities:
(i) If
. Then
(ii) If
. Then
(iii) If
are the connected components of a graph G. Then
Definition 2.1. Suppose that
,
, where
. Let
as shown in Figure 1. We designate the transformation from G to
in Figure 1 as of type I.
Lemma 2.2. [10] Let G and
be two graphs with n vertices defined in Definition 2.1. Then
.
Definition 2.2. Let H, X and Y be three connected graphs. Suppose that u, v are two vertices of H, v' is a vertex of X, u' is a vertex of Y. Let G be the graph obtained from H, X, Y by identifying v with v' and u with u', respectively. Let
be the graph obtained from H, X and Y by identifying vertices v, v' and u', and let
be the graph obtained from H, X and Y by identifying vertices u, v' and u', see Figure 2. We designate the transformation from G to
in Figure 2 as of type II.
Lemma 2.3. [18] Let
and
be three graphs with n vertices defined in Definition 2.2. Then
or
.
Definition 2.3. Let G0 be a non-trivial connected graph and
. Assume that
and
. Suppose that
.
Suppose that T is a star tree of order n, whose center vertex is w. If
,
, we designate the transformation from G1 to G2 in Figure 3 as of type III.
Lemma 2.4. [17] Let G1 and G2 be three graphs with n vertices defined in Definition 2.3. Then
.
Definition 2.4. Let G be a graph with k vertices, and let
be a path in
. Let
be a graph of order n is obtained from G by deleting
and adding
, see Figure 4. We designate the transformation from G to
in Figure 4 as of type IV.
Lemma 2.5. [18] Let G and
be two graphs with n vertices defined in Definition 2.4. Then
.
Lemma 2.6. [19] Let G be a graph, and let
. Suppose that
be a graph obtained from G by attaching
pendant vertices to v and u, respectively. Then
3. The Minimum Hosoya Index of a Kind of Tetracyclic Graph
Pan [20] determined the minimum Hosoya index among all graphs of n vertices
and m edges, where
. In the paper, we characterize the 2nd to 4th minimum Hosoya index of a kind of tetracyclic Graph, with
.
The following a kind of tetracyclic graphs and extremal graph defined as follows:
-
, let
be the graph consisting of two given vertices joined by five disjoint paths whose order are
, respectively, where
and most one of them is 0. The resulting graph can be seen in Figure 5.
-
, Let
be the graph obtained by adding
pendent vertices to one of two vertices of degree 4 in Figure 5.
Theorem 3.1. [20] Let
be a tetracyclic graph with
vertices.
.
We Determine 2nd to 4th Minimum Hosoya Index of a Kind of Tetracyclic Graph
By Theorem 3.1 and Lemmas 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 and 2.5, we can obtain a fact as follows. Let
with n vertices. By repeated applications of transformations I, II, III and IV presented in Definitions 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 and 2.4, respectively. We can transform G into
. That is, there exist graphs
for
such that
↪
↪
↪
↪
↪
(1)
where
. This implies that
has six possible structures, see Figure 6.
Lemma 3.1. Let
be a graph with
vertices. If
, in
. Then
, where the equality holds if and only if
.
Proof. By lemma 2.1 and 2.6, we have,
,
. So
.¨
Lemma 3.2. Let
be a graph with
vertices. If
, in
. Then
, where the equality
![]()
Figure 5. Graphs
.
![]()
Figure 6. Graphs
.
holds if and only if
.
Proof. By lemma 2.1 and 2.6, we have,
or
. So
.¨
Lemma 3.3. Let
be a graph with
vertices. If
, in
. Then
, where the equality holds if and only if
.
Proof. By lemma 2.1 and 2.6, we have,
or
. So
.¨
Theorem 3.2. Let
with
vertices. Then
, where the equality holds if and only if
.
Proof. By lemma 2.1 and 2.6, we have,
,
and
. Combing Theorem 3.1, Lemmas 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3, (1) and arguments as above, we get that
.¨
Now we characterize the extremal graphs with the third minimal Hosoya index in
By (1), we know that the extremal graphs with the third minimal Hosoya index will be yielded in
or
. By the reverse operations of I, II, III and IV, we determine the structures of graphs
and
in
. And we also determine the lower bounds of Hosoya indices of these graphs.
By the reverse operations of I, II, III and IV, we can obtain that the structures of graphs
in
is isomorphic to one of graphs
,
,
and
, see Figure 7.
Lemma 3.4. Let
be a graph with
vertices. If
and
. Then
, where the equality
![]()
Figure 7. Graphs
,
,
,
.
holds if and only if
or
.
Proof. Assume that two of s,t and u are equal to 1 in
. By Lemma 2.6,
,
,
.
Assume that at most one of s,t and u are equal to 1 in
. By Lemma 2.6, we get that
. Suppose that
. If
and
, then
. If
and
, then
. If
and
, then
. By arguments as above, we have
. where the equality holds if and only if
or
.¨
Lemma 3.5. Let
be a graph with
vertices. If
, in
. Then
, where the equality holds if and only if
or
.
Proof. By lemma 2.1 and 2.6, we have,
or
. So
, where the equality holds if and only if
or
.¨
Lemma 3.6. Let
be a graph with
vertices. If
, in
. Then
, where the equality holds if and only if
or
.
Proof. By lemma 2.1 and 2.6, we have,
or
. So
, where the equality holds if and only if
or
.¨
Lemma 3.7. Let
be a graph with
vertices. If
and
. then
, where the equality holds if and only if
.
Proof. By lemma 2.1 and 2.6, firstly,
, we need to discuss the following two cases: assume that at most one of s,t and u are equal to 1 in
, has three subcases:
(I) If
or
,
(i)
,
(ii)
.
(II) If
or
, has two subcases:
(i)
,
(ii)
.
(III) If
or
, has two subcases:
(i)
,
(ii)
.
Assume that two of s,t and u are equal to 1 in
, has three subcases:
(i)
,
(ii)
.
(iii)
.¨
Theorem 3.3. Let
with
vertices. Then
.
Proof. By lemma 2.1 and 2.6, we have,
, Combing Theorem 3.1, 3.2, Lemmas 3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, (1) and arguments as above, we get that
.¨
Similary, by repeated applications of transformations I, II, III and IV, we are considering
. This implies that
has six possible structures, see Figure 8.
Lemma 3.8. Let
be a graph with
vertices. If
, in
. Then
, where the equality
![]()
Figure 8. Graphs
,
,
,
,
.
holds if and only if
.
Proof. By lemma 2.1 and 2.6, we have,
or
. So
.¨
Lemma 3.9. Let
be a graph with
vertices. If
, in
. Then
, where the equality holds if and only if
.
Proof. By lemma 2.1 and 2.6, we have,
or
. So
.¨
Theorem 3.4. Let
with
vertices. Then
.
Proof. By lemma 2.1 and 2.6, we have,
,
,
,
, Combing Theorem 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, Lemmas 3.8, 3.9, (1) and arguments as above, we get that
.¨
Similary, by repeated applications of transformations I, II, III and IV, we are considering
. This implies that
has six possible structures, see Figure 9.
Lemma 3.10. Let
be a graph with
vertices. If
, in
. Then
, where the equality holds if and only if
.
Proof. By lemma 2.1 and 2.6, we have,
or
. So
.¨
Lemma 3.11. Let
be a graph with
vertices. If
![]()
Figure 9. Graphs
,
,
,
,
.
, in
. Then
, where the equality holds if and only if
.
Proof. By lemma 2.1 and 2.6, we have,
or
. So
.¨
Theorem 3.5. Let
with
vertices. Then
.
Proof. By lemma 2.1 and 2.6, we have,
,
,
,
, Combing Theorem 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, Lemmas 3.10, 3.11, (1) and arguments as above, we get that
.¨
Theorem 3.6. Let
with
vertices. Then
.
4. Conclusions
Combing Theorem 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5 we obtain.
Let
with
vertices. Then
. In this paper,
we determine the second to fourth minimal Hosoya indices in a kind of tetracyclica graph. This method has not been cited yet, and it is innovative in terms of method. Using this method can solve other graphics and knowledge in the field of graph theory, so promoting the development of graph theory research, respectively. Some new topological indicators in graph theory are closely related to hosoya indicators, laying the foundation for these studies.
Fund Projects
Project No 07M2022003.