Abstract
In the fields of mathematics, chemistry, and the physical sciences, graph theory plays a substantial role. Using modern mathematical techniques, quantitative structure-property relationship (QSPR) modeling predicts the physical, synthetic, and natural properties of substances based only on their chemical composition. For a chemical graph, the temperature of a vertex is a local property introduced by Fajtlowicz (1988). A temperature-based graphical descriptor is structured based on temperatures of vertices. Involving a non-zero real parameter β , the general F-temperature index Tβ is a temperature index having strong efficacy. In this paper, we employ discrete optimization and regression analysis to find optimal value(s) of β for which the prediction potential of Tβ and the total π -electron energy Eπ of polycyclic hydrocarbons is the strongest. This, in turn, answers an open problem proposed by Hayat & Liu (2024). Applications of the optimal values for Tβ are presented a two-parametric family of carbon nanocones in predicting their Eπ with significantly higher accuracy.