On the Reformulated Second Zagreb Index of Graph Operations

Abstract

Topological indices (TIs) are expressed by constant real numbers that reveal the structure of the graphs in QSAR/QSPR investigation. The reformulated second Zagreb index (RSZI) is such a novel TI having good correlations with various physical attributes, chemical reactivities, or biological activities/properties. The RSZI is defined as the sum of products of edge degrees of the adjacent edges, where the edge degree of an edge is taken to be the sum of vertex degrees of two end vertices of that edge with minus 2. In this study, the behaviour of RSZI under graph operations containing Cartesian product, join, composition, and corona product of two graphs has been established. We have also applied these results to compute RSZI for some important classes of molecular graphs and nanostructures.