English

Characterization of Graphs With Failed Skew Zero Forcing Number of 1

Combinatorics 2022-09-21 v1

Abstract

Given a graph GG, the zero forcing number of GG, Z(G)Z(G), is the smallest cardinality of any set SS of vertices on which repeated applications of the forcing rule results in all vertices being in SS. The forcing rule is: if a vertex vv is in SS, and exactly one neighbor uu of vv is not in SS, then uu is added to SS in the next iteration. Hence the failed zero forcing number of a graph was defined to be the size of the largest set of vertices which fails to force all vertices in the graph. A similar property called skew zero forcing was defined so that if there is exactly one neighbor uu of vv is not in SS, then uu is added to SS in the next iteration. The difference is that vertices that are not in SS can force other vertices. This leads to the failed skew zero forcing number of a graph, which is denoted by F(G)F^{-}(G). In this paper we provide a complete characterization of all graphs with F(G)=1F^{-}(G)=1. Fetcie, Jacob, and Saavedra showed that the only graphs with a failed zero forcing number of 11 are either: the union of two isolated vertices; P3P_3; K3K_3; or K4K_4. In this paper we provide a surprising result: changing the forcing rule to a skew-forcing rule results in an infinite number of graphs with F(G)=1F^{-}(G)=1.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2209.09379,
  title  = {Characterization of Graphs With Failed Skew Zero Forcing Number of 1},
  author = {Aidan Johnson and Andrew E. Vick and Darren A. Narayan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2209.09379},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

8 pages, this research was supported by the National Science Foundation Research forUndergraduates Award 1950189