Related papers: Fractional Zero Forcing via Three-color Forcing Ga…
Zero forcing is an iterative process on a graph used to bound the maximum nullity. The process begins with select vertices as colored, and the remaining vertices can become colored under a specific color change rule. The goal is to find a…
\emph{Zero forcing number}, $Z(G)$, of a graph $G$ is the minimum cardinality of a set $S$ of black vertices (whereas vertices in $V(G) \setminus S$ are colored white) such that $V(G)$ is turned black after finitely many applications of…
We introduce randomized zero forcing (RZF), a stochastic color-change process on directed graphs in which a white vertex turns blue with probability equal to the fraction of its incoming neighbors that are blue. Unlike probabilistic zero…
Given a graph $G$, the zero forcing number of $G$, $Z(G)$, is the smallest cardinality of any set $S$ of vertices on which repeated applications of the forcing rule results in all vertices being in $S$. The forcing rule is: if a vertex $v$…
In this paper we introduce a class of regular bipartite graphs whose biadjacency matrices are circulant matrices and we describe some of their properties. Notably, we compute upper and lower bounds for the zero forcing number for such a…
Given a simple, finite graph with vertex set $V(G)$, we define a zero forcing set of $G$ as follows. Choose $S\subseteq V(G)$ and color all vertices of $S$ blue and all vertices in $V(G) - S$ white. The color change rule is if $w$ is the…
In a zero forcing process, vertices of a graph are colored black and white initially, and if there exists a black vertex adjacent to exactly one white vertex, then the white vertex is forced to be black. A zero blocking set is an initial…
Zero forcing is a dynamic coloring process on graphs. Initially, each vertex of a graph is assigned a color of either blue or white, and then a process begins by which blue vertices force white vertices to become blue. The zero forcing…
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…
Zero forcing is a graph propagation process for which vertices fill-in (or propagate information to) neighbor vertices if all neighbors except for one, are filled. The zero-forcing number is the smallest number of vertices that must be…
We devise a new formulation for the vertex coloring problem. Different from other formulations, decision variables are associated with the pairs of vertices. Consequently, colors will be distinguishable. Although the objective function is…
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…
In this paper we study fractional coloring from the angle of distributed computing. Fractional coloring is the linear relaxation of the classical notion of coloring, and has many applications, in particular in scheduling. It was proved by…
In this paper, we study (zero) forcing sets which induce connected subgraphs of a graph. The minimum cardinality of such a set is called the connected forcing number of the graph. We provide sharp upper and lower bounds on the connected…
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…
A forcing set for a perfect matching of a graph is defined as a subset of the edges of that perfect matching such that there exists a unique perfect matching containing it. A complete forcing set for a graph is a subset of its edges, such…
Zero forcing is a combinatorial game played on a graph where the goal is to start with all vertices unfilled and to change them to filled at minimal cost. In the original variation of the game there were two options. Namely, to fill any one…
Graph coloring problems are a central topic of study in the theory of algorithms. We study the problem of partially coloring partially colorable graphs. For $\alpha \leq 1$ and $k \in \mathbb{Z}^+$, we say that a graph $G=(V,E)$ is…
Given a simple undirected graph $G$ and a positive integer $k$, the $k$-forcing number of $G$, denoted $F_k(G)$, is the minimum number of vertices that need to be initially colored so that all vertices eventually become colored during the…
We give an algorithm that finds a zero forcing set which approximates the optimal size by a factor of $\text{pw}(G)+1$, where $\text{pw}(G)$ is the pathwidth of $G$. Starting from a path decomposition, the algorithm runs in $O(nm)$ time,…