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Cops and Robbers is a pursuit-evasion game played on graphs, of which many variants have been developed and studied. We introduce a variant of this game, "Sneaky-Active Cops and Robbers", where all cops and robber must move on their turn,…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-03-16 Tien Chih , Laura Scull

We consider a game in which a cop searches for a moving robber on a graph using distance probes, studied by Carragher, Choi, Delcourt, Erickson and West, which is a slight variation on one introduced by Seager. Carragher, Choi, Delcourt,…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2020-08-12 John Haslegrave , Richard A. B. Johnson , Sebastian Koch

We present an algorithm of time complexity $O(kn^{k+2})$ deciding whether a graph $G$ on $n$ vertices is $k$-copwin. The fastest algorithm thus far had time complexity $O(n^{2k+2})$.

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2022-06-16 Jan Petr , Julien Portier , Leo Versteegen

The game of Cops and Robbers is a well known pursuit-evasion game played on graphs. It has been proved \cite{bounded_degree} that cubic graphs can have arbitrarily large cop number $c(G)$, but the known constructions show only that the set…

We consider the Robber Locating Game, where an invisible moving robber tries to evade the pursuit of one or more helicopter cops, who send distance probes from anywhere on the graph. In this paper, we attempt to propose two useful…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2023-07-07 Shiqi Pan

We consider a variation of Cops and Robber, introduced in [D. Cox and A. Sanaei, The damage number of a graph, [Aust. J. of Comb. 75(1) (2019) 1-16] where vertices visited by a robber are considered damaged and a single cop aims to minimize…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-12-19 Melissa A. Huggan , Margaret-Ellen Messinger , Amanda Porter

We prove that every connected $P_5$-free graph has cop number at most two, solving a conjecture of Sivaraman. In order to do so, we first prove that every connected $P_5$-free graph $G$ with independence number at least three contains a…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-10-29 Maria Chudnovsky , Sergey Norin , Paul Seymour , Jérémie Turcotte

We consider a game in which a cop searches for a moving robber on a graph using distance probes, which is a slight variation on one introduced by Seager. Carragher, Choi, Delcourt, Erickson and West showed that for any n-vertex graph $G$…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2020-08-12 John Haslegrave , Richard A. B. Johnson , Sebastian Koch

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…

In 2019, Sivaraman conjectured that every $P_k$-free graph has cop number at most $k-3$. In the same year, Liu proved this conjecture for $(P_k,\text{claw})$-free graphs. Recently Chudnovsky, Norin, Seymour, and Turcotte proved this…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-09-16 Alexander Clow , Erin Meger

We study the game of Cops and Robbers, where cops try to capture a robber on the vertices of a graph. Meyniel's conjecture states that for every connected graph $G$ on $n$ vertices, the cop number of $G$ is upper bounded by $O(\sqrt{n})$,…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2019-09-09 Fatemeh Hasiri , Igor Shinkar

We adapt the Gy\'{a}rf\'{a}s path argument to prove that $t-2$ cops can capture a robber, in at most $t-1$ moves, in the game of cops and robbers played in a graph that does not contain the $t$-vertex path as an induced subgraph.

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2019-03-06 Vaidy Sivaraman

Many evolutionary and constructive heuristic approaches have been introduced in order to solve the Traveling Thief Problem (TTP). However, the accuracy of such approaches is unknown due to their inability to find global optima. In this…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2017-08-02 Junhua Wu , Markus Wagner , Sergey Polyakovskiy , Frank Neumann

The localization game is a pursuit-evasion game analogous to Cops and Robbers, where the robber is invisible and the cops send distance probes in an attempt to identify the location of the robber. We present a novel graph parameter called…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2021-05-21 Natalie C. Behague , Anthony Bonato , Melissa A. Huggan , Trent G. Marbach , Brittany Pittman

The guarding game is a game in which several cops try to guard a region in a (directed or undirected) graph against Robber. Robber and the cops are placed on the vertices of the graph; they take turns in moving to adjacent vertices (or…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2013-11-15 R. Samal , T. Valla

Two kinds of approximation algorithms exist for the k-BALANCED PARTITIONING problem: those that are fast but compute unsatisfying approximation ratios, and those that guarantee high quality ratios but are slow. In this paper we prove that…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2019-04-29 Andreas Emil Feldmann

Mohar recently adapted the classical game of Cops and Robber from graphs to metric spaces, thereby unifying previously studied pursuit-evasion games. He conjectured that finitely many cops can win on any compact geodesic metric space, and…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-09-08 Agelos Georgakopoulos

We present two efficient algorithms that compute the optimal strategy for cop in the game of Cop v.s. Gambler where the gambler's strategy is not optimal but known to the cop. The first algorithm is analogous to Bellman-Ford algorithm for…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2017-01-11 Shen-Fu Tsai

Various models to quantify the reliability of a network have been studied where certain components of the graph may fail at random and the probability that the remaining graph is connected is the proxy for reliability. In this work we…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2020-11-24 Maimoonah Ahmed , Ben Cameron

We examine a version of the Cops and Robber (CR) game in which the robber is invisible, i.e., the cops do not know his location until they capture him. Apparently this game (CiR) has received little attention in the CR literature. We…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2015-03-19 Athanasios Kehagias , Dieter Mitsche , Pawel Pralat