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Related papers: Locating a robber with multiple probes

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In the game of \emph{cops and robbers} on a graph $G = (V,E)$, $k$ cops try to catch a robber. On the cop turn, each cop may move to a neighboring vertex or remain in place. On the robber's turn, he moves similarly. The cops win if there is…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2012-04-03 Andrew Beveridge , Paolo Codenotti , Aaron Maurer , John McCauley , Silviya Valeva

We show that the expected time for a smart "cop" to catch a drunk "robber" on an $n$-vertex graph is at most $n + {\rm o}(n)$. More precisely, let $G$ be a simple, connected, undirected graph with distinguished points $u$ and $v$ among its…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2014-11-05 Natasha Komarov , Peter Winkler

The localization game is a variant of the game of Cops and Robber in which the robber is invisible and moves between adjacent vertices, but the cops can probe any $k$ vertices of the graph to obtain the distance between probed vertices and…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-02-10 Vesna Iršič Chenoweth , Matija Skrt

We study a variant of the Cops and Robbers game on graphs in which the robbers damage the visited vertices, aiming to maximize the number of damaged vertices. For that game with one cop against $s$ robbers a conjecture was made by Carlson,…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-09-16 Miloš Stojaković , Lasse Wulf

The main topic of this paper is motivated by a localization problem in cellular networks. Given a graph $G$ we want to localize a walking agent by checking his distance to as few vertices as possible. The model we introduce is based on a…

Cops and Robbers is a well-studied pursuit-evasion game in which a set of cops seeks to catch a robber in a graph G, where cops and robber move along edges of G. The cop number of G is the minimum number of cops that is sufficient to catch…

In the cops and robber game, there are multiple cops and a single robber taking turns moving along the edges of a graph. The goal of the cops is to capture the robber (move to the same vertex as the robber) and the goal of the robber is to…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-12-04 Suryaansh Jain , Subrahmanyam Kalyanasundaram , Kartheek Sriram Tammana

We consider several variants of the classical Cops and Robbers game. We treat the version where the robber can move R > 1 edges at a time, establishing a general upper bound of N / \alpha ^{(1-o(1))\sqrt{log_\alpha N}}, where \alpha = 1 +…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2010-04-15 Alan Frieze , Michael Krivelevich , Po-Shen Loh

In this short paper we study the game of Cops and Robbers, played on the vertices of some fixed graph $G$ of order $n$. The minimum number of cops required to capture a robber is called the cop number of $G$. We show that the cop number of…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2014-09-30 Zsolt Adam Wagner

We study a variant of the classical cop-robber game played on compact metric graphs, where each edge is assigned a positive length and identified with a real interval of corresponding length. In this setting, both the cop and the robber…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-12-23 Daniel Berend , Michael D. Boshernitzan

We consider a variant of the Cops and Robber game, introduced by Fomin, Golovach, Kratochvil, in which the robber has unbounded speed, i.e. can take any path from her vertex in her turn, but she is not allowed to pass through a vertex…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2011-04-19 Abbas Mehrabian

The localization game is a two player combinatorial game played on a graph $G=(V,E)$. The cops choose a set of vertices $S_1 \subseteq V$ with $|S_1|=k$. The robber then chooses a vertex $v \in V$ whose location is hidden from the cops, but…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-09-07 Lyuben Lichev , Dieter Mitsche , Pawel Pralat

A gambler moves between the vertices $1, \ldots, n$ of a graph using the probability distribution $p_{1}, \ldots, p_{n}$. Multiple cops pursue the gambler on the graph, only being able to move between adjacent vertices. We investigate the…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2016-10-11 Jesse Geneson

The Cops and Robber game is played on undirected finite graphs. $k$ cops and one robber are positioned on vertices and take turn in moving along edges. The cops win if, after a move, a cop and the robber are on the same vertex. A graph is…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2011-11-10 Dirk Oliver Theis

The cop throttling number of a graph, introduced in 2018 by Breen et al., optimizes the balance between the number of cops used and the number of rounds required to catch the robber in a game of Cops and Robbers. In 2019, Cox and Sanaei…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2020-07-14 Joshua Carlson , Robin Eagleton , Jesse Geneson , John Petrucci , Carolyn Reinhart , Preetul Sen

The Cops and Robber game is played on undirected finite graphs. A number of cops and one robber are positioned on vertices and take turns in sliding along edges. The cops win if they can catch the robber. The minimum number of cops needed…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2013-12-30 Nancy E. Clarke , Samuel Fiorini , Gwenaël Joret , Dirk Oliver Theis

The deduction game may be thought of as a variant on the classical game of cops and robber in which the cops (searchers) aim to capture an invisible robber (evader); each cop is allowed to move at most once, and cops situated on different…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-10-30 Andrea C. Burgess , Nancy E. Clarke , Shannon L. Fitzpatrick , Melissa A. Huggan

Meyniel's conjecture states that $n$-vertex connected graphs have cop number $O(\sqrt{n})$. The current best known upper bound is $n/2^{(1-o(1))\sqrt{\log n}}$, proved independently by Lu and Peng (2011), and by Scott and Sudakov (2011). In…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-02-10 Prosenjit Bose , Louis Esperet , Jędrzej Hodor , Gwenaël Joret , Piotr Micek , Clément Rambaud

The 'Cheating Robot' version of Cops and Robbers is played on a finite, simple, connected graph. The players move in the same time period. However, before moving, the robot observes to which vertices the cops are moving and it is fast…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2021-03-12 Melissa A. Huggan , Richard J. Nowakowski

The game of Cops and Robber is a pursuit-evasion game which is usually played on a connected graph. In the game, a set of cops and a robber move around the vertices of a graph along edges, where the cops aim to capture the robber, while the…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2021-07-27 Pinkaew Siriwong , Ratinan Boonklurb , Henry Liu , Sirirat Singhun