English

Cops and Robbers is EXPTIME-complete

Combinatorics 2014-12-05 v2 Computational Complexity Discrete Mathematics

Abstract

We investigate the computational complexity of deciding whether k cops can capture a robber on a graph G. In 1995, Goldstein and Reingold conjectured that the problem is EXPTIME-complete when both G and k are part of the input; we prove this conjecture.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1309.5405,
  title  = {Cops and Robbers is EXPTIME-complete},
  author = {William B. Kinnersley},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1309.5405},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

v2: updated figures and slightly clarified some minor points

R2 v1 2026-06-22T01:31:20.250Z