Open problems on the exponential vertex-degree-based topological indices of graphs (Q2659161)

Vertex-degree-based topological indices is one important class of graph descriptors with applications in chemistry and pharmacology. Some well-known examples are the second Zagreb index \(M_{2}\), defined for a graph \(G\) with set of edges \(E\) as \[ M_{2}\left( G\right) =\sum\limits_{uv\in E}d_{u}d_{v}, \] where \(d_{u}\) denotes the degree of the vertex \(u\), the atom-bond-connectivity index \(\operatorname{ABC}\) defined as \[ \operatorname{ABC}\left( G\right) =\sum\limits_{uv\in E}\sqrt{\frac{d_{u}+d_{v}-2}{ d_{u}d_{v}}}, \] and the augmented Zagreb index \(\operatorname{AZI}\), defined as \[ \operatorname{AZI}\left( G\right) =\sum\limits_{uv\in E}\left( \frac{d_{u}d_{v}}{ d_{u}+d_{v}-2}\right) ^{3}. \] Bearing in mind its discrimination power, the exponential of a vertex-degree-based topological index was introduced in [\textit{J. Rada}, ``Exponential vertex-degree-based topological indices and discrimination'', MATCH Commun. Math. Comput. Chem. 82, No. 1, 29--41 (2019)], as \[ e^{\varphi }=\sum\limits_{uv\in E}e^{\varphi \left( u,v\right) }, \] where \(\varphi \) is a vertex-degree-based topological index. The authors of this paper solve two open problems posed in [\textit{R. Cruz} et al., Discrete Appl. Math. 283, 634--643 (2020; Zbl 1442.05035)], namely, they find the maximal value of \(e^{\mathrm{AZI}}\) among all trees of order \(n\), and the maximal value of \(e^{M_{2}}\) among all trees of order \(n.\) Moreover, they characterize the extremal trees in both cases. They also give upper and lower bounds of \(e^{\mathrm{ABC}}\) over general graphs, and present an upper bound for \(e^{\mathrm{ABC}}\) over trees in terms of the order and diameter of the tree.