The strong 3-rainbow index of some certain graphs and its amalgamation

Abstract

We introduce a strong \(k\)-rainbow index of graphs as modification of well-known \(k\)-rainbow index of graphs. A tree in an edge-colored connected graph \(G\), where adjacent edge may be colored the same, is a rainbow tree if all of its edges have distinct colors. Let \(k\) be an integer with \(2\leq k\leq n\). The strong \(k\)-rainbow index of \(G\), denoted by \(srx_k(G)\), is the minimum number of colors needed in an edge-coloring of \(G\) so that every \(k\) vertices of \(G\) is connected by a rainbow tree with minimum size. We focus on \(k=3\). We determine the strong \(3\)-rainbow index of some certain graphs. We also provide a sharp upper bound for the strong \(3\)-rainbow index of amalgamation of graphs. Additionally, we determine the exact values of the strong \(3\)-rainbow index of amalgamation of some graphs.