On various (strong) rainbow connection numbers of graphs

Abstract

An edge-coloured path is \emph{rainbow} if all the edges have distinct colours. For a connected graph $G$, the \emph{rainbow connection number} $rc(G)$ is the minimum number of colours in an edge-colouring of $G$ such that, any two vertices are connected by a rainbow path. Similarly, the \emph{strong rainbow connection number} $src(G)$ is the minimum number of colours in an edge-colouring of $G$ such that, any two vertices are connected by a rainbow geodesic (i.e., a path of shortest length). These two concepts of connectivity in graphs were introduced by Chartrand et al.~in 2008. Subsequently, vertex-coloured versions of both parameters, $rvc(G)$ and $srvc(G)$, and a total-coloured version of the rainbow connection number, $trc(G)$, were introduced. In this paper we introduce the strong total rainbow connection number $strc(G)$, which is the version of the strong rainbow connection number using total-colourings. Among our results, we will determine the strong total rainbow connection numbers of some special graphs. We will also compare the six parameters, by considering how close and how far apart they can be from one another. In particular, we will characterise all pairs of positive integers $a$ and $b$ such that, there exists a graph $G$ with $trc(G)=a$ and $strc(G)=b$, and similarly for the functions $rvc$ and $srvc$.