Radio number for some thorn graphs

For a graph G and any two vertices u and v in G, let d(u, v) denote the distance between u and v and let diam(G) be the diameter of G. A multilevel distance labeling (or radio labeling) for G is a function f that assigns to each vertex of G a positive integer such that for any two distinct vertices u and v, d(u, v)+ | f(u) − f(v) |≥ diam(G) + 1. The largest integer in the range of f is called the span of f and is denoted span(f). The radio number of G, denoted rn(G), is the minimum span of any radio labeling for G. A thorn graph is a graph obtained from a given graph by attaching new terminal vertices to the vertices of the initial graph. In this paper the radio numbers for two classes of thorn graphs are determined: the caterpillar obtained from the path Pn by attaching a new terminal vertex to each non-terminal vertex and the thorn star Sn,k obtained from the star Sn by attaching k new terminal vertices to each terminal vertex of the star.