English

Loop zero forcing and grundy domination in planar graphs and claw-free cubic graphs

Combinatorics 2022-12-02 v1

Abstract

Given a simple, finite graph with vertex set V(G)V(G), we define a zero forcing set of GG as follows. Choose SV(G)S\subseteq V(G) and color all vertices of SS blue and all vertices in V(G)SV(G) - S white. The color change rule is if ww is the only white neighbor of blue vertex vv, then we change the color of ww from white to blue. If after applying the color change rule as many times as possible eventually every vertex of GG is blue, we call SS a zero forcing set of GG. Z(G)Z(G) denotes the minimum cardinality of a zero forcing set. Davila and Henning proved in \cite{zerocubic} that for any claw-free cubic graph GG, Z(G)13V(G)+1Z(G) \le \frac{1}{3}|V(G)| + 1. We show that if GG is 22-edge-connected, claw-free, and cubic, then Z(G)5n(G)18+1Z(G) \le \left\lceil\frac{5n(G)}{18}\right\rceil+1. We also study a similar graph invariant known as the loop zero forcing number of a graph GG which happens to be the dual invariant to the Grundy domination number of GG. Specifically, we study the loop zero forcing number in two particular types of planar graphs.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2212.00701,
  title  = {Loop zero forcing and grundy domination in planar graphs and claw-free cubic graphs},
  author = {Alex Domat and Kirsti Kuenzel},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2212.00701},
  year   = {2022}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T07:19:42.700Z