English

Bounds on the propagation radius in power domination

Combinatorics 2026-01-21 v2

Abstract

Let GG be a graph and let SV(G)S \subseteq V(G). It is said that SS \textit{dominates} N[S]N[S]. We say that SS \textit{monitors} vertices of GG as follows. Initially, all dominated vertices are monitored. This step is called the \textit{domination} step. Thereafter, the set of unmonitored vertices of which each is the only unmonitored neighbour of a monitored vertex, is monitored. This step is called a \textit{propagation} step and is repeated until the process terminates. The process terminates when the there are no monitored vertices which have exactly one unmonitored neighbour. This combined process of initial domination and subsequent propagation is called \textit{power domination}. If all vertices of GG are monitored at termination, then SS is said to be a \textit{power dominating set (PDS) of GG}. The \textit{power domination number of GG}, denoted as γp(G)\gamma_p(G), is the minimum cardinality of a PDS of GG. The \textit{propagation radius of GG} is the minimum number of steps it takes a minimum PDS to monitor V(G)V(G). In this paper we determine an upper bound on the propagation radius of GG with regards to power domination, in terms of δ\delta and nn. We show that this bound is only attained when γp(G)=1\gamma_p(G)=1 and then improve this bound for γp(G)2\gamma_p(G)\geq 2. Sharpness examples for these bounds are provided. We also present sharp upper bounds on the propagation radius of split graphs. We present sharpness results for a known lower bound of the propagation radius for all Δ3\Delta\geq 3.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.02211,
  title  = {Bounds on the propagation radius in power domination},
  author = {Imran Allie and Brandon du Preez and Dean Reagon and Adriana Roux},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.02211},
  year   = {2026}
}