Double vertex-edge domination

Abstract

A vertex [Formula: see text] of a graph [Formula: see text] is said to [Formula: see text]-dominate every edge incident to [Formula: see text], as well as every edge adjacent to these incident edges. A set [Formula: see text] is a vertex-edge dominating set (double vertex-edge dominating set, respectively) if every edge of [Formula: see text] is [Formula: see text]-dominated by at least one vertex (at least two vertices) of [Formula: see text] The minimum cardinality of a vertex-edge dominating set (double vertex-edge dominating set, respectively) of [Formula: see text] is the vertex-edge domination number [Formula: see text] (the double vertex-edge domination number [Formula: see text], respectively). In this paper, we initiate the study of double vertex-edge domination. We first show that determining the number [Formula: see text] for bipartite graphs is NP-complete. We also prove that for every nontrivial connected graphs [Formula: see text] [Formula: see text] and we characterize the trees [Formula: see text] with [Formula: see text] or [Formula: see text] Finally, we provide two lower bounds on the double ve-domination number of trees and unicycle graphs in terms of the order [Formula: see text] the number of leaves and support vertices, and we characterize the trees attaining the lower bound.