The [formula omitted]-connectivity of line graphs.

Let S be a set of at least two vertices in a graph G. A subtree T of G is an S -Steiner tree if S ⊆ V (T). Two S -Steiner trees T 1 and T 2 are internally disjoint (resp. edge-disjoint) if E (T 1) ∩ E (T 2) = 0̸ and V (T 1) ∩ V (T 2) = S (resp. E (T 1) ∩ E (T 2) = 0̸). Let κ G (S) (resp. λ G (S)) be the maximum number of internally disjoint (resp. edge-disjoint) S -Steiner trees in G , and let κ k (G) (resp. λ k (G)) be the minimum κ G (S) (resp. λ G (S)) for S ranges over all k -subsets of V (G). It is well-known that the connectivity of the line graph of a graph G is closely related to the edge-connectivity of G. Chartrand et al., Li et al., and Li et al. showed that κ k (L (G)) ≥ λ k (G) for k = 2 , 3 , 4 , respectively. In [Discrete Math. 341(2018), 1945–1951.], Li et al. also proposed the following conjecture: κ k (L (G)) ≥ λ k (G) for integer k ≥ 2 and a graph G with at least k vertices. In this paper, we show that κ k (L (G)) ≥ λ k (G) − m a d (G) 2 2 for general k , where m a d (G) is the maximum average degree of a graph G. We also show that κ k (L (G)) ≥ λ k (G) − r 2 2 for any integers k and r such that k ≤ r 2 . Finally, we show that the conjecture holds for k = 5 , and the conjecture holds for the wheel graph and the complete bipartite graph K 3 , n. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]