Related papers: Cops, robbers, and burning bridges

Introduced by Harris, Insko, Prieto Langarica, Stoisavljevic, and Sullivan, the \emph{tipsy cop and drunken robber} is a variant of the cop and robber game on graphs in which the robber simply moves randomly along the graph, while the cop…

We study zombies and survivor, a variant of the game of cops and robber on graphs. In this variant, the single survivor plays the role of the robber and attempts to escape from the zombies that play the role of the cops. The zombies are…

A gambler moves on the vertices $1, \ldots, n$ of a graph using the probability distribution $p_{1}, \ldots, p_{n}$. A cop pursues the gambler on the graph, only being able to move between adjacent vertices. What is the expected number of…

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,…

"Zombies and Survivor" is a variant of the well-studied game of "Cops and Robber" where the zombies (cops) can only move closer to the survivor (robber). We consider the deterministic version of the game where a zombie can choose their path…

We study a discrete-time model for the spread of information in a graph, motivated by the idea that people believe a story when they learn of it from two different origins. Similar to the burning number, in this problem, information spreads…

Graph pebbling is a game played on graphs with pebbles on their vertices. A pebbling move removes two pebbles from one vertex and places one pebble on an adjacent vertex. A configuration $C$ is a supply of pebbles at various vertices of a…

Graph burning is a graph process that models the spread of social contagion. Initially, all the vertices of a graph $G$ are unburnt. At each step, an unburnt vertex is put on fire and the fire from burnt vertices of the previous step…

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 $O(n^{2k+2})$.

Let $G$ be any connected graph on $n$ vertices, $n \ge 2.$ Let $k$ be any positive integer. Suppose that a fire breaks out on some vertex of $G.$ Then in each turn $k$ firefighters can protect vertices of $G$ --- each can protect one vertex…

It is well known that the treewidth of a graph $G$ corresponds to the node search number where a team of cops is pursuing a robber that is lazy, visible and has the ability to move at infinite speed via unguarded path. In recent papers,…

In this paper we analyze a variant of the pursuit-evasion game on a graph $G$ where the intruder occupies a vertex, is allowed to move to adjacent vertices or remain in place, and is 'invisible' to the searcher, meaning that the searcher…

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…

The burning number $b(G)$ of a graph $G$ is the minimum number of rounds required to burn all vertices when, at each discrete step, existing fires spread to neighboring vertices and one new fire may be ignited at an unburned vertex. This…

We consider problems related to the combinatorial game (Free-)Flood-It, in which players aim to make a coloured graph monochromatic with the minimum possible number of flooding operations. We show that the minimum number of moves required…

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…

We study versions of cop and robber pursuit-evasion games on the visibility graphs of polygons, and inside polygons with straight and curved sides. Each player has full information about the other player's location, players take turns, and…

We consider a new probabilistic graph searching game played on graphs, inspired by the familiar game of Cops and Robbers. In Zombies and Survivors, a set of zombies attempts to eat a lone survivor loose on a given graph. The zombies…

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…

We consider the model of limited visibility Cops and Robbers, where the cops can only see within their $l$-neighbourhood. We prove that the number of cops needed to see the robber can be arbitrarily smaller than the number needed to capture…