Introduction to double coalitions in graphs

Abstract: Let $G(V, E)$ be a finite, simple, isolate-free graph. A set $D$ of vertices of a graph $G$ with the vertex set $V$ is a double dominating set of $G$, if every vertex $v\in D$ has at least one neighbor in $D$ and every vertex $v \in V \setminus D$ has at least two neighbors in $D$. A double coalition consists of two disjoint sets of vertices $V_{1}$ and $V_{2}$, neither of which is a double dominating set but their union $V_{1}\cup V_{2}$ is a double dominating set. A double coalition partition of a graph $G$ is a partition $\Pi = {V_1, V_2,..., V_k }$ of $V$ such that no subset of $\Pi$ is a double dominating set of $G$, but for every set $V_i \in \Pi$, there exists a set $V_j \in \Pi$ such that $V_i$ and $V_j$ form a double coalition. In this paper, we study properties of double coalitions in graphs.