On the anti-forcing number of graph powers.

Let G = (V, E) be a simple connected graph. A perfect matching (or Kekulé structure in chemical literature) of G is a set of disjoint edges which covers all vertices of G. The anti-forcing number of G is the smallest number of edges such that the remaining graph obtained by deleting these edges has a unique perfect matching and is denoted by af(G). For every m ∈ N, the mth power of G, denoted by Gm, is a graph with the same vertex set as G such that two vertices are adjacent in Gm if and only if their distance is at most m in G. In this paper, we study the anti-forcing number of the powers of some graphs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]