A study on the nourishing number of graphs and graph powers (Q2339585)

Summary: Let \(\mathbb N_0\) be the set of all non-negative integers and \(\mathcal P(\mathbb N_0)\) be its power set. Then, an integer additive set-indexer (IASI) of a given graph \(G\) is defined as an injective function \(f:V(G)\to\mathcal P(\mathbb N_0)\) such that the induced edge-function \(f^+:E(G)\to\mathcal P(\mathbb N_0)\) defined by \(f^+(uv)=f(u)+f(v)\) is also injective, where \(f(u)+f(v)\) is the sumset of \(f(u)\) and \(f(v)\). An IASI \(f\) of \(G\) is said to be a strong IASI of \(G\) if \(|f^+(uv)|=|f(u)|\) \(|f(v)|\) for all \(uv\in E(G)\). The nourishing number of a graph \(G\) is the minimum order of the maximal complete subgraph of \(G\) so that \(G\) admits a strong IASI. In this paper, we study the characteristics of certain graph classes and graph powers that admit strong integer additive set-indexers and determine their corresponding nourishing numbers.