On a Conjecture Concerning the Complementary Second Zagreb Index

Abstract

The complementary second Zagreb index of a graph $G$ is defined as $cM_2(G)=\sum_{uv\in E(G)}|(d_u(G))^2-(d_v(G))^2|$, where $d_u(G)$ denotes the degree of a vertex $u$ in $G$ and $E(G)$ represents the edge set of $G$. Let $G^*$ be a graph having the maximum value of $cM_2$ among all connected graphs of order $n$. Furtula and Oz [MATCH Commun. Math. Comput. Chem. 93 (2025) 247--263] conjectured that $G^*$ is the join $K_k+\overline{K}_{n-k}$ of the complete graph $K_k$ of order $k$ and the complement $\overline{K}_{n-k}$ of the complete graph $K_{n-k}$ such that the inequality $k<\lceil n/2 \rceil$ holds. We prove that (i) the maximum degree of $G^*$ is $n-1$ and (ii) no two vertices of minimum degree in $G^*$ are adjacent; both of these results support the aforementioned conjecture. We also prove that the number of vertices of maximum degree in $G^*$, say $k$, is at most $-\frac{2}{3}n+\frac{3}{2}+\frac{1}{6}\sqrt{52n^2-132n+81}$, which implies that $k<5352n/10000$. Furthermore, we establish results that support the conjecture under consideration for certain bidegreed and tridegreed graphs. In the aforesaid paper, it was also mentioned that determining the $k$ as a function of the $n$ is far from being an easy task; we obtain the values of $k$ for $5\le n\le 149$ in the case of certain bidegreed graphs by using computer software and found that the resulting sequence of the values of $k$ does not exist in "The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences" (an online database of integer sequences).