English

A Lower Bound on the Failed Zero Forcing Number of a Graph

Combinatorics 2023-08-16 v1

Abstract

Given a graph G=(V,E)G=(V,E) and a set of vertices marked as filled, we consider a color-change rule known as zero forcing. A set SS is a zero forcing set if filling SS and applying all possible instances of the color change rule causes all vertices in VV to be filled. A failed zero forcing set is a set of vertices that is not a zero forcing set. Given a graph GG, the failed zero forcing number F(G)F(G) is the maximum size of a failed zero forcing set. An open question was whether given any kk there is a an \ell such that all graphs with at least \ell vertices must satisfy F(G)kF(G)\geq k. We answer this question affirmatively by proving that for a graph GG with nn vertices, F(G)n12F(G)\geq \lfloor\frac{n-1}{2}\rfloor.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2202.03821,
  title  = {A Lower Bound on the Failed Zero Forcing Number of a Graph},
  author = {Eric Ufferman and Nicolas Swanson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2202.03821},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

11 pages, 13 figures. Comments welcome

R2 v1 2026-06-24T09:26:04.418Z