On the co-Roman domination in graphs

Let G = (V, E) be a graph and let f : V (G) → {0, 1, 2} be a function. A vertex v is said to be protected with respect to f, if f(v) > 0 or f(v) = 0 and v is adjacent to a vertex of positive weight. The function f is a co-Roman dominating function if (i) every vertex in V is protected, and (ii) each v ∈ V with positive weight has a neighbor u ∈ V with f(u) = 0 such that the function fuv : V → {0, 1, 2}, defined by fuv(u) = 1, fuv(v) = f(v) − 1 and fuv(x) = f(x) for x ∈ V \ {v, u}, has no unprotected vertex. The weight of f is ω(f) = ∑v∈V f(v). The co-Roman domination number of a graph G, denoted by γcr(G), is the minimum weight of a co-Roman dominating function on G. In this paper, we give a characterization of graphs of order n for which co-Roman domination number is 2n3 ${{2n} \over 3}$ or n − 2, which settles two open problem in [S. Arumugam, K. Ebadi and M. Manrique, Co-Roman domination in graphs, Proc. Indian Acad. Sci. Math. Sci. 125 (2015) 1–10]. Furthermore, we present some sharp bounds on the co-Roman domination number.