Extremal degree-based indices of general polyomino chains via dynamic programming

Abstract

In this paper, we develop a dynamic programming framework for identifying extremal general polyomino chains with respect to degree-based topological indices. As a concrete application, we resolve an open problem posed in 2015 by determining, for any given number of squares, the general polyomino chains that maximize the generalized Randi\'c index with parameter $\alpha=-1$. We show that the extremal configurations depend explicitly on the residue class of the number of squares modulo 4. Beyond this specific result, the proposed dynamic programming approach provides a constructive and systematic methodology for tackling extremal problems in graph theory.