Sum labelling graphs of maximum degree two

Abstract

The concept of sum labelling was introduced in 1990 by Harary. A graph is a sum graph if its vertices can be labelled by distinct positive integers in such a way that two vertices are connected by an edge if and only if the sum of their labels is the label of another vertex in the graph. It is easy to see that every sum graph has at least one isolated vertex, and every graph can be made a sum graph by adding at most n2 isolated vertices to it. The minimum number of isolated vertices that need to be added to a graph to make it a sum graph is called the sum number of the graph.The sum number of several prominent graph classes (e.g., cycles, trees, complete graphs) is already well known. We examine the effect of taking the disjoint union of graphs on the sum number. In particular, we provide a complete characterisation of the sum number of graphs of maximum degree two, since every such graph is the disjoint union of paths and cycles.