Conflict-free Connection Number and Independence Number of a Graph

Abstract

An edge-colored graph G is conflict-free connected if any two of its vertices are connected by a path, which contains a color used on exactly one of its edges. The conflict-free connection number of a connected graph G, denoted by cfc(G), is defined as the minimum number of colors that are required in order to make G conflict-free connected. In this paper, we investigate the relation between the conflict-free connection number and the independence number of a graph. We firstly show that cfc(G) ≤ α(G) for any connected graph G, and give an example to show that the bound is sharp. With this result, we prove that if T is a tree with \(\Delta(T)\geq\frac{\alpha(T)+2}{2}\), then cfc(T) = Δ(T).