A structural approach to the graceful coloring of a subclass of trees

Abstract

Let M={1,2,..m} and G be a simple graph. A graceful m-coloring of G is a proper vertex coloring of G using the colors in M which leads to a proper edge coloring using M∖{m} colors such that the associated color of each edge is the absolute difference between their end vertices. The graceful chromatic number χg(G)= min {m:G admits a gracefulm− coloring }. We prove that 5≤χg(T)≤7, where T is a tree with Δ=4. Furthermore, we categorize the trees into three types along with its characterization and the related coloring algorithm are presented in this study.