On the Mean Order of Connected Induced Subgraphs of Block Graphs

Abstract: The average order of the connected induced subgraphs of a graph $G$ is called the mean connected induced subgraph (CIS) order of $G$. This is an extension of the mean subtree order of a tree, first studied by Jamison. In this article, we demonstrate that among all connected block graphs of order $n$, the path $P_n$ has minimum mean CIS order. This extends a result of Jamison from trees to connected block graphs, and supports the conjecture of Kroeker, Mol, and Oellermann that $P_n$ has minimum mean CIS order among all connected graphs of order $n$.