Paired-Domination Subdivision Numbers of Graphs

A paired-dominating set of a graph G = (V, E) with no isolated vertex is a dominating set of vertices whose induced subgraph has a perfect matching. The paired-domination number of G, denoted by γ _pr (G), is the minimum cardinality of a paired-dominating set of G. The paired-domination subdivision number sd _γpr (G) is the minimum number of edges that must be subdivided (each edge in G can be subdivided at most once) in order to increase the paired-domination number. In this paper we establish upper bounds on the paired-domination subdivision number and pose some problems and conjectures.