some results about the connectivity of trees

The second smallest Laplacian eigenvalue of a graph G is called algebraic connectivity, denoted a(G). The ordering of trees via this graph invariant is frequently studied in the literature. In this paper, we present a new invariant, the Internal Degree Sequence (IDS), that also supports an accurate evaluation of the connectivity of trees. We compare the IDS with a(G) for all elements in six classes of trees known to have the largest algebraic connectivity and we show that the IDS provides a strict total ordering of the elements of these classes. This result is also proved for a subclass of trees of diameter 4.