A solution to a conjecture on the rainbow connection number

Abstract

For a graph $G$, Chartrand et al. defined the rainbow connection number $rc(G)$ and the strong rainbow connection number $src(G)$ in "G. Charand, G.L. John, K.A. Mckeon, P. Zhang, Rainbow connection in graphs, Mathematica Bohemica, 133(1)(2008) 85-98". They raised the following conjecture: for two given positive $a$ and $b$, there exists a connected graph $G$ such that $rc(G)=a$ and $src(G)=b$ if and only if $a=b\in\{1,2\}$ or $ 3\leq a\leq b$". In this short note, we will show that the conjecture is true.