Some Reverse Topological Indices of Comet and Double Comet Graphs

Introduction: Chemical Graph Theory or CGT for short, is a transdisciplinary field of Mathematics wherein graphs are used to represent chemical compounds. Under this representation, the atoms of a chemical compound are expressed as vertices, while the bonds connecting these atoms are expressed as edges. Once the graph representation of a chemical compound has been determined, graph-theoretic techniques can now be used to determine various topological indices associated with the chemical compound. Topological indices are invariants of a graph that have predictive power for the chemical properties of a chemical compound. In CGT, trees, being connected and acyclic, have been an essential class of graphs. This is because, most compounds have acyclic molecular structures. In the 2023 study by Gowtham and Husin, various reverse topological indices of a family of trees called bistar graphs have been determined. Objectives: Motivated by the work of Gowtham and Husin, we determine some reverse topological indices of another family of trees called comets and double comets. Double comets are natural extension of bistar graphs. We also give a certain computational application of our results on double comet graphs. Finally, we investigate the relationship between the reverse topological indices of bistar graphs and double comets. Methods: Several important graph-theoretic concepts were used to analyze some important properties of comets and double comets, leading to the computation of their reverse vertex degree based topological indices. Results: The following reverse vertex degree-based topological indices for comets and double comets were determined: Reverse sum-connectivity, First reverse Zagreb, Second reverse Zagreb, Reverse arithmetic-geometric, Reverse geometric-arithmetic, Reverse Sombor, and Reverse Nirmala. A computational application of the results to a certain chemical compound (2,2,4,4-Tetramethylpentane) or C9H20 were also demonstrated. Conclusions: The results of the paper provided an extension to an existing result on the reverse vertex degree-based topological indices of bistar graphs by considering double comet graphs. Several topological reverse vertex degree-based topological indices were also computed for comet graphs. The computed topological indices were also applied in determining some invariants of a certain chemical compound. For future studies, we recommend that reverse vertex degree based topological indices of other family of trees will be considered.