English

Pushing Cops and Robber on Graphs of Maximum Degree 4

Combinatorics 2025-12-29 v2 Discrete Mathematics

Abstract

\textsc{Cops and Robber} is a game played on graphs where a set of \textit{cops} aim to \textit{capture} the position of a single \textit{robber}. The main parameter of interest in this game is the \textit{cop number}, which is the minimum number of cops that are sufficient to guarantee the capture of the robber. In a directed graph G\overrightarrow{G}, the \textit{push} operation on a vertex vv reverses the orientation of all arcs incident on vv. We consider a variation of classical \textsc{Cops and Robber} on oriented graphs, where in its turn, each cop can either move to an out-neighbor of its current vertex or push some vertex of the graph, whereas, the robber can move to an adjacent vertex in its turn. [Das et al., CALDAM, 2023] introduced this variant and established that if G\overrightarrow{G} is an orientation of a subcubic graph, then one cop with push ability has a winning strategy. We extend these results to establish that if G\overrightarrow{G} is an orientation of a 33-degenerate graph, or of a graph with maximum degree 44, then one cop with push ability has a winning strategy.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2505.21450,
  title  = {Pushing Cops and Robber on Graphs of Maximum Degree 4},
  author = {Harmender Gahlawat},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.21450},
  year   = {2025}
}