On reformulated Zagreb indices

Abstract

Zagreb indices were reformulated in terms of the edge-degrees instead of the vertex-degrees as the original Zagreb indices. Three types of Zagreb indices were considered: original, modified and variable Zagreb indices. It is found that the optimum exponent of the variable reformulated Zagreb M ₂ index (v=−1/2) is identical with the exponent of the vertex-connectivity index, which is the most used topological index in QSPR and QSAR. The close relationship between the graph and its line graph is used to relate the original and reformulated indices.