Related papers: A faster algorithm for Cops and Robbers

In the game of Cops and Robbers, a team of cops attempts to capture a robber on a graph $G$. All players occupy vertices of $G$. The game operates in rounds; in each round the cops move to neighboring vertices, after which the robber does…

In the $k$-cut problem, we are given an edge-weighted graph $G$ and an integer $k$, and have to remove a set of edges with minimum total weight so that $G$ has at least $k$ connected components. The current best algorithms are an…

We consider the Cops and Robber pursuit-evasion game when the edge-set of the graph is allowed to change in time, possibly at every round. Specifically, the game is played on an infinite periodic sequence $\mathcal{G} = (G_0, \dots,…

We investigate the computational complexity of deciding whether k cops can capture a robber on a graph G. In 1995, Goldstein and Reingold conjectured that the problem is EXPTIME-complete when both G and k are part of the input; we prove…

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…

In the k-Path problem, the input is a directed graph $G$ and an integer $k\geq 1$, and the goal is to decide whether there is a simple directed path in $G$ with exactly $k$ vertices. We give a deterministic algorithm for k-Path with time…

We consider a variant of the Cops and Robber game, 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 occupied by a cop. Let c_{infty}(G) denote the…

In this short paper we study the game of cops and robbers, which is played on the vertices of some fixed graph $G$. Cops and a robber are allowed to move along the edges of $G$ and the goal of cops is to capture the robber. The cop number…

We give an algorithm that decides whether the bipartite crossing number of a given graph is at most $k$. The running time of the algorithm is upper bounded by $2^{O(k)} + n^{O(1)}$, where $n$ is the number of vertices of the input graph,…

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…

The weighted $k$-center problem in graphs is a classical facility location problem where we place $k$ centers on the graph, which minimize the maximum weighted distance of a vertex to its nearest center. We study this problem when the…

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…

We study the vertex pursuit game of \emph{Cops and Robbers}, in which cops try to capture a robber on the vertices of the graph. The minimum number of cops required to win on a given graph $G$ is called the cop number of $G$. We focus on…

In graph theory, the longest path problem is the problem of finding a simple path of maximum length in a given graph. For some small classes of graphs, the problem can be solved in polynomial time [2, 4], but it remains NP-hard on general…

We consider a game in which a cop searches for a moving robber on a connected 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…

We present a novel approach to finding the $k$-sink on dynamic path networks with general edge capacities. Our first algorithm runs in $O(n \log n + k^2 \log^4 n)$ time, where $n$ is the number of vertices on the given path, and our second…

We consider the cop-throttling number of a graph $G$ for the game of Cops and Robbers, which is defined to be the minimum of $(k + \text{capt}_k(G))$, where $k$ is the number of cops and $\text{capt}_k(G)$ is the minimum number of rounds…

We present a $(1+\frac{k}{k+2})$-approximation algorithm for the Maximum $k$-dependent Set problem on bipartite graphs for any $k\ge1$. For a graph with $n$ vertices and $m$ edges, the algorithm runs in $O(k m \sqrt{n})$ time and improves…

A $k$-matching cover of a graph $G$ is a union of $k$ matchings of $G$ which covers $V(G)$. A matching cover of $G$ is optimal if it consists of the fewest matchings of $G$. In this paper, we present an algorithm for finding an optimal…

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 +…