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Zero forcing (also called graph infection) on a simple, undirected graph $G$ is based on the color-change rule: If each vertex of $G$ is colored either white or black, and vertex $v$ is a black vertex with only one white neighbor $w$, then…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2014-10-21 Leslie Hogben , My Huynh , Nicole Kingsley , Sarah Meyer , Shanise Walker , Michael Young

We determine upper and lower bounds on the zero forcing number of 2-connected outerplanar graphs in terms of the structure of the weak dual. We show that the upper bound is always at most half the number of vertices of the graph. This work…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-08-23 Nolan Ison , Mark Kempton , Franklin Kenter

Zero forcing is a process that models the spread of information throughout a graph as white vertices are forced to turn blue using a color change rule. The idea of throttling, introduced in 2013 by Butler and Young, is to optimize the…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-04-11 Jurgen Kritschgau , Josh Carlson

Zero forcing is a combinatorial game played on graphs that can be used to model the spread of information with repeated applications of a color change rule. In general, a zero forcing parameter is the minimum number of initial blue vertices…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-04-01 Joshua Carlson , John Petrucci

Zero forcing is a process on a graph in which the goal is to force all vertices to become blue by applying a color change rule. Throttling minimizes the sum of the number of vertices that are initially blue and the number of time steps…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2019-03-15 Joshua Carlson

Given a graph $G$ and a real number $0\le p\le 1$, we define the random set $B_p(G)\subset V(G)$ by including each vertex independently and with probability $p$. We investigate the probability that the random set $B_p(G)$ is a zero forcing…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-08-30 Bryan Curtis , Luyining Gan , Jamie Haddock , Rachel Lawrence , Sam Spiro

The burning and forcing processes are both instances of propagation processes on graphs that are commonly used to model real-world spreading phenomena. The contribution of this paper is two-fold. We first establish a connection between…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-02-16 Aida Abiad , Pax Mallee

The forcing number of a graph with a perfect matching $M$ is the minimum number of edges in $M$ whose endpoints need to be deleted, such that the remaining graph only has a single perfect matching. This number is of great interest in…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2024-02-01 Maximilian Gorsky , Fabian Kreßin

The \emph{zero forcing number}, $Z(G)$, of a graph $G$ is the minimum cardinality of a set $S$ of black vertices (whereas vertices in $V(G)-S$ are colored white) such that $V(G)$ is turned black after finitely many applications of "the…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2014-12-11 Cong X. Kang , Eunjeong Yi

The \emph{zero forcing number} $Z(G)$ of a graph $G$ is the minimum cardinality of a set $S$ of black vertices (whereas vertices in $V(G)\setminusS$ are colored white) such that $V(G)$ is turned black after finitely many applications of…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2012-08-20 Cong X. Kang , Eunjeong Yi

We introduce a new variant of zero forcing - signed zero forcing. The classical zero forcing number provides an upper bound on the maximum nullity of a matrix with a given graph (i.e. zero-nonzero pattern). Our new variant provides an…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2013-07-09 Felix Goldberg , Abraham Berman

Zero forcing in a graph refers to the evolution of vertex states under repeated application of a color change rule. Typically the states are chosen to be blue and white, and a forcing set is an initial set of blue vertices such that all of…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-11-21 Daniela Ferrero , H. Tracy Hall , Leslie Hogben , Mark Hunnell , Ben Small

We study the minimum rank of a (simple, undirected) graph, which is the minimum rank among all matrices in a space determined by the graph. We determine the exact set of graphs on eight vertices for which the nullity of a minimum rank…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-06-13 Wayne Barrett , Mark Hunnell , John Hutchens , John Sinkovic

In this paper, we propose computational approaches for the zero forcing problem, the connected zero forcing problem, and the problem of forcing a graph within a specified number of timesteps. Our approaches are based on a combination of…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2018-09-20 Boris Brimkov , Caleb C. Fast , Illya V. Hicks

A dynamic coloring of the vertices of a graph $G$ starts with an initial subset $S$ of colored vertices, with all remaining vertices being non-colored. At each discrete time interval, a colored vertex with exactly one non-colored neighbor…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2018-01-17 Randy Davila , Michael Henning

A connected forcing set of a graph is a zero forcing set that induces a connected subgraph. In this paper, we introduce and study CF-dense graphs -- graphs in which every vertex belongs to some minimum connected forcing set. We identify…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-07-16 Boris Brimkov , Randy Davila , Houston Schuerger

The global forcing number of a graph G is the minimal cardinality of an edge subset discriminating all perfect matchings of G, denoted by gf(G). For any perfect matching M of G, the minimal cardinality of an edge subset S in E(G)-M such…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-11-08 Yaxian Zhang , Heping Zhang

The forcing number of a perfect matching $M$ in a graph $G$ is the smallest number of edges inside $M$ that can not be contained in other perfect matchings. The anti-forcing number of $M$ is the smallest number of edges outside $M$ whose…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2020-12-25 Kai Deng , Huazhong Lü , Tingzeng Wu

In this paper, we study minimal (with respect to inclusion) zero forcing sets. We first investigate when a graph can have polynomially or exponentially many distinct minimal zero forcing sets. We also study the maximum size of a minimal…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-04-18 Boris Brimkov , Joshua Carlson

In this paper, we study a dynamic coloring of the vertices of a graph $G$ that starts with an initial subset $S$ of colored vertices, with all remaining vertices being non-colored. At each discrete time interval, a colored vertex with…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2016-10-27 Randy Davila , Michael Henning