English
Related papers

Related papers: Zero Forcing Sets for Graphs

200 papers

In this note, we study a dynamic vertex coloring for a graph $G$. In particular, one starts with a certain set of vertices black, and all other vertices white. Then, at each time step, a black vertex with exactly one white neighbor forces…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2018-11-02 Randy Davila , Thomas Kalinowski , Sudeep Stephen

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

Zero forcing is a process on a graph that colors vertices blue by starting with some of the vertices blue and applying a color change rule. Throttling minimizes the sum of the size of the initial blue vertex set and the number of the time…

We investigate the zero-forcing number for triangle-free graphs. We improve upon the trivial bound, $\delta \le Z(G)$ where $\delta$ is the minimum degree, in the triangle-free case. In particular, we show that $2 \delta - 2 \le Z(G)$ for…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2014-06-13 Randy Davila , Franklin Kenter

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 2017-08-18 Randy Davila , Michael Henning

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 concept of zero forcing involves a dynamic coloring process by which blue vertices cause white vertices to become blue, with the goal of forcing the entire graph blue while choosing as few as possible vertices to be initially blue. Past…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-09-10 Sara Anderton , Kanno Mizozoe , Houston Schuerger , Andrew Schwartz

Zero forcing is an iterative graph coloring process whereby a colored vertex with a single uncolored neighbor forces that neighbor to be colored. It is NP-hard to find a minimum zero forcing set - a smallest set of initially colored…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2016-07-05 Boris Brimkov

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

Zero forcing is an iterative graph coloring process studied for its wide array of applications. In this process, the vertices of the graph are initially designated as blue or white, and a zero forcing set is a set of initially blue vertices…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-03-23 Asher Brown , Mark Hunnell , Za'Kiyah Toomer-Sanders , Sarah Weber

For a graph $G$ in which vertices are either black or white, a zero forcing process is an iterative vertex color changing process such that the only white neighbor of a black vertex becomes black in the next time step. A zero forcing set is…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-08-26 Hau-Yi Lin , Wu-Hsiung Lin , Gerard Jennhwa Chang

Motivated in part by an observation that the zero forcing number for the complement of a tree on $n$ vertices is either $n-3$ or $n-1$ in one exceptional case, we consider the zero forcing number for the complement of more general graphs…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-03-13 Emelie Curl , Shaun Fallat , Ryan Moruzzi , Carolyn Reinhart , Derek Young

In zero forcing, the focus is typically on finding the minimum cardinality of any zero forcing set in the graph; however, the number of cardinalities between $0$ and the number of vertices in the graph for which there are both zero forcing…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-09-13 Bonnie Jacob

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

Let $G$ be a simple graph with $2n$ vertices and a perfect matching. The forcing number $f(G,M)$ of a perfect matching $M$ of $G$ is the smallest cardinality of a subset of $M$ that is contained in no other perfect matching of $G$. Among…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-11-23 Qian qian Liu , He ping Zhang

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 2017-02-22 Randy Davila , Michael Henning

Let $S$ be a set of vertices of a graph $G$. Let $cl(S)$ be the set of vertices built from $S$, by iteratively applying the following propagation rule: if a vertex and all but exactly one of its neighbors are in $cl(S)$, then the remaining…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2019-08-09 Najibeh Shahbaznejad , Ignacio M. Pelayo , Adel P. Kazemi

There are profound relations between the zero forcing number and minimum rank of a graph. We study the relation of both parameters with a third one, the algebraic co-rank; that is defined as the largest $i$ such that the $i$-th critical…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2017-10-11 Carlos A. Alfaro , Jephian C. -H. Lin

Let $G$ be a graph that admits a perfect matching. A {\sf forcing set} for a perfect matching $M$ of $G$ is a subset $S$ of $M$, such that $S$ is contained in no other perfect matching of $G$. This notion originally arose in chemistry in…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2009-03-17 Peyman Afshani , Hamed Hatami , Ebadollah S. Mahmoodian

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