Total monochromatic connection of graphs

Abstract

A graph is said to be {\it total-colored} if all the edges and the vertices of the graph are colored. A path in a total-colored graph is a {\it total monochromatic path} if all the edges and internal vertices on the path have the same color. A total-coloring of a graph is a {\it total monochromatically-connecting coloring} ({\it TMC-coloring}, for short) if any two vertices of the graph are connected by a total monochromatic path of the graph. For a connected graph $G$, the {\it total monochromatic connection number}, denoted by $tmc(G)$, is defined as the maximum number of colors used in a TMC-coloring of $G$. These concepts are inspired by the concepts of monochromatic connection number $mc(G)$, monochromatic vertex connection number $mvc(G)$ and total rainbow connection number $trc(G)$ of a connected graph $G$. Let $l(T)$ denote the number of leaves of a tree $T$, and let $l(G)=\max \{l(T)|$ $T$ is a spanning tree of $G$ $\}$ for a connected graph $G$. In this paper, we show that there are many graphs $G$ such that $tmc(G)=m-n+2+l(G)$, and moreover, we prove that for almost all graphs $G$, $tmc(G)=m-n+2+l(G)$ holds. Furthermore, we compare $tmc(G)$ with $mvc(G)$ and $mc(G)$, respectively, and obtain that there exist graphs $G$ such that $tmc(G)$ is not less than $mvc(G)$ and vice versa, and that $tmc(G)=mc(G)+l(G)$ holds for almost all graphs. Finally, we prove that $tmc(G)\le mc(G)+mvc(G)$, and the equality holds if and only if $G$ is a complete graph.

12 pages