On the Edge Connectivity of Semi-strong Product Graphs

The concept of edge connectivity was first proposed by K. Menger, and in communication networks and logical networks, edge connectivity can be used to measure network reliability and fault tolerance. The graph product method can be used to construct complex networks, simulate biological molecule interactions etc. At present, research on the edge connectivity of product graphs mainly focuses on the connectivity of standard product graphs, such as Cartesian product graphs, strong product graphs. The unique properties exhibited by non standard product graphs (such as semi-strong product graphs.) in practical applications are worth further exploration. The concept of semi-strong product was proposed by Mordeson and Chang Shyh, that is, for two graphs and , their semi-strong product is a graph whose vertex set is , and the edge set is defined as follows: if and are two vertices in the semi-strong product , then there is an edge between them if and only if and and are adjacent in , or and are adjacent in and and are adjacent in . And applications of the semi-strong product in fuzzy graphs, symbolic graphs, and finance have shown its broad research prospects. In this article, we mainly study the edge connectivity of semi-strong product graphs, and obtain some exact values. Furthermore, we also give an necessary and sufficient condition for a semi-strong product to be maximally edge-connected.