Extremum modified first Zagreb connection index of \(n\)-vertex trees with fixed number of pendent vertices (Q2187984)

Summary: The modified first Zagreb connection index \(\mathrm{ZC}_1^\ast\) is a graph invariant that appeared about fifty years ago within a study of molecular modeling, and after a long time, it has been revisited in two papers [\textit{A. Ali} and \textit{N. Trinajstić}, ``A novel/old modification of the first Zagreb index'', Molecular Inf. 37, 6--7 (2018; \url{doi:10.1002/minf.201800008}); \textit{I. Gutman} et al., Commun. Comb. Optim. 2, No. 2, 99--117 (2017; Zbl 1386.05034)] independently. For a graph \(G\), this graph invariant is defined as \(\mathrm{ZC}_1^\ast\left( G\right)=\sum_{v \in V \left( G\right)} d_v \tau_v \), where \(d_v\) is the degree of the vertex \(v\) and \(\tau_v\) is the connection number of \(v\) (that is, the number of vertices having distance 2 from \(v)\). In this paper, the graphs with maximum/minimum \(\mathrm{ZC}_1^\ast\) value are characterized from the class of all \(n\)-vertex trees with fixed number of pendent vertices (that are the vertices of degree 1).