On a Conjecture About the Sombor Index of Graphs

Abstract

Let $G$ be a graph with vertex set $V(G)$ and edge set $E(G)$. The Sombor and reduced Sombor indices of $G$ are defined as $SO(G)=\sum_{uv\in E(G)}\sqrt{deg_G(u)^2+deg_G(v)^2}$ and $SO_{red}(G)=\sum_{uv\in E(G)}\sqrt{(deg_G(u)-1)^2+(deg_G(v)-1)^2}$, respectively. We denote by $H_{n,\nu}$ the graph constructed from the star $S_n$ by adding $\nu$ edge(s) $(0\leq \nu\leq n-2)$, between a fixed pendent vertex and $\nu$ other pendent vertices. R\'eti et al. [T. R\'eti, T. Do\v{s}li\'c and A. Ali, On the Sombor index of graphs, $\textit{Contrib. Math. }$ $\textbf{3}$ (2021) 11-18] proposed a conjecture that the graph $H_{n,\nu}$ has the maximum Sombor index among all connected $\nu$-cyclic graphs of order $n$, where $5\leq \nu \leq n-2$. In this paper we confirm that the former conjecture is true. It is also shown that this conjecture is valid for the reduced Sombor index. The relationship between Sombor, reduced Sombor and first Zagreb indices of graph is also investigated.