Edge Roman domination on graphs

Abstract

An edge Roman dominating function of a graph $G$ is a function $f\colon E(G) \rightarrow \{0,1,2\}$ satisfying the condition that every edge $e$ with $f(e)=0$ is adjacent to some edge $e'$ with $f(e')=2$. The edge Roman domination number of $G$, denoted by $\gamma'_R(G)$, is the minimum weight $w(f) = \sum_{e\in E(G)} f(e)$ of an edge Roman dominating function $f$ of $G$. This paper disproves a conjecture of Akbari, Ehsani, Ghajar, Jalaly Khalilabadi and Sadeghian Sadeghabad stating that if $G$ is a graph of maximum degree $\Delta$ on $n$ vertices, then $\gamma_R'(G) \le \lceil \frac{\Delta}{\Delta+1} n \rceil$. While the counterexamples having the edge Roman domination numbers $\frac{2\Delta-2}{2\Delta-1} n$, we prove that $\frac{2\Delta-2}{2\Delta-1} n + \frac{2}{2\Delta-1}$ is an upper bound for connected graphs. Furthermore, we provide an upper bound for the edge Roman domination number of $k$-degenerate graphs, which generalizes results of Akbari, Ehsani, Ghajar, Jalaly Khalilabadi and Sadeghian Sadeghabad. We also prove a sharp upper bound for subcubic graphs. In addition, we prove that the edge Roman domination numbers of planar graphs on $n$ vertices is at most $\frac{6}{7}n$, which confirms a conjecture of Akbari and Qajar. We also show an upper bound for graphs of girth at least five that is 2-cell embeddable in surfaces of small genus. Finally, we prove an upper bound for graphs that do not contain $K_{2,3}$ as a subdivision, which generalizes a result of Akbari and Qajar on outerplanar graphs.