English

Planar graph is on fire

Combinatorics 2015-12-01 v2 Discrete Mathematics

Abstract

Let GG be any connected graph on nn vertices, n2.n \ge 2. Let kk be any positive integer. Suppose that a fire breaks out on some vertex of G.G. Then in each turn kk firefighters can protect vertices of GG --- each can protect one vertex not yet on fire; Next a fire spreads to all unprotected neighbours. The \emph{kk-surviving} rate of G, denoted by ρk(G),\rho_k(G), is the expected fraction of vertices that can be saved from the fire by kk firefighters, provided that the starting vertex is chosen uniformly at random. In this paper, it is shown that for any planar graph GG we have ρ3(G)221.\rho_3(G) \ge \frac{2}{21}. Moreover, 3 firefighters are needed for the first step only; after that it is enough to have 2 firefighters per each round. This result significantly improves known solutions to a problem of Cai and Wang (there was no positive bound known for surviving rate of general planar graph with only 3 firefighters). The proof is done using the separator theorem for planar graphs.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1311.1158,
  title  = {Planar graph is on fire},
  author = {Przemysław Gordinowicz},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1311.1158},
  year   = {2015}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T02:01:40.764Z