English

Reconfiguration graphs of zero forcing sets

Combinatorics 2020-09-02 v1 Discrete Mathematics

Abstract

This paper begins the study of reconfiguration of zero forcing sets, and more specifically, the zero forcing graph. Given a base graph GG, its zero forcing graph, Z(G)\mathscr{Z}(G), is the graph whose vertices are the minimum zero forcing sets of GG with an edge between vertices BB and BB' of Z(G)\mathscr{Z}(G) if and only if BB can be obtained from BB' by changing a single vertex of GG. It is shown that the zero forcing graph of a forest is connected, but that many zero forcing graphs are disconnected. We characterize the base graphs whose zero forcing graphs are either a path or the complete graph, and show that the star cannot be a zero forcing graph. We show that computing Z(G)\mathscr{Z}(G) takes 2Θ(n)2^{\Theta(n)} operations in the worst case for a graph GG of order nn.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2009.00220,
  title  = {Reconfiguration graphs of zero forcing sets},
  author = {Jesse Geneson and Ruth Haas and Leslie Hogben},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2009.00220},
  year   = {2020}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T18:13:45.770Z