# Strong rainbow coloring of unicyclic graphs

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Pure Mathematics, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, P.O. Box 1159, Mashhad 91775, Iran

2 Department of Applied Mathematics, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, P.O. Box 1159, Mashhad 91775, Iran.

10.22034/kjm.2020.109818

Abstract

A path in an edge-colored graph is called a \textit{rainbow path}, if no two edges of the path are colored the same. An edge-colored graph $G$, is \textit{rainbow-connected} if any two vertices are connected by a rainbow path. A rainbow-connected graph is called strongly rainbow connected if for every two distinct vertices $u$ and $v$ of $V(G)$, there exists a rainbow path $P$ from $u$ to $v$ that in the length of $P$ is equal to $d(u,v)$. The notations {\rm rc}$(G)$ and {\rm src}$(G)$ are the smallest number of colors that are needed in order to make $G$ rainbow connected and strongly rainbow connected, respectively. In this paper, we find the exact value of {\rm rc}$(G)$, where $G$ is a unicyclic graph. Moreover, we determine the upper and lower bounds for {\rm src}$(G)$, where $G$ is a unicyclic graph, and we show that these bounds are sharp.

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