A study on certain bounds of the rna number and some characterizations of the parity signed graphs

Abstract

For a given graph $G$, let $f:V(G)\to \{1,2,\ldots,n\}$ be a bijective mapping. For a given edge $uv \in E(G)$, $σ(uv)=+$, if $f(u)$ and $f(v)$ have the same parity and $σ(uv)=-$, if $f(u)$ and $f(v)$ have opposite parity. The resultant signed graph is called a parity signed graph and the mapping $σ$ is called a parity signature of $G$. Let us denote a parity signed graph $S=(G,σ)$ by $G_σ$. Let $E^-(G_σ)$ be a set of negative edges in a parity signed graph and let $Si(G)$ be the set of all parity signatures for the underlying graph $G$. We define the \textit{rna} number of $G$ as $σ^-(G)=\min\{|E^-(G_σ)|:σ\in Si(G)\}$. In this paper, we prove a non-trivial upper bound in the case of trees: $σ^-(T)\leq \lceil\frac{n}{2}\rceil$, where $T$ is a tree of order $n+1$. We have found families of trees whose \textit{rna} numbers are bounded above by $\lceil\fracΔ{2}\rceil$ and also we have shown that for any $i\leq \lceil\frac{n}{2}\rceil$, there exists a tree $T$ (of order $n+1$) with $σ^-(T)=i$. This paper gives a characterization of graphs with \textit{rna} number 1 in terms of its spanning trees and also a characterization of graphs with \textit{rna} number 2.