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Related papers: Cops and Robbers on Graphs with Path Constraints

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Cops and Robbers is a pursuit evasion game played on a graph, first introduced independently by Quilliot \cite{quilliot1978jeux} and Nowakowski and Winkler \cite{NOWAKOWSKI1983235} over four decades ago. A main interest in recent the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-19 Meagan Mann , Christian Muise , 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

Given a graph $G$, the strong clique number of $G$, denoted $\omega_S(G)$, is the maximum size of a set $S$ of edges such that every pair of edges in $S$ has distance at most $2$ in the line graph of $G$. As a relaxation of the renowned…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2020-03-24 Eun-Kyung Cho , Ilkyoo Choi , Ringi Kim , Boram Park

In 2015, Brown and Erey conjectured that every $2$-connected graph $G$ on $n$ vertices with chromatic number $k\geq 4$ has at most $(x-1)_{k-1}\big((x-1)^{n-k+1}+(-1)^{n-k}\big)$ proper $x$-colorings for all $x\geq k$. Engbers, Erey, Fox,…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-10-26 Yan Yang

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…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2014-03-18 Abbas Mehrabian

Scott proved in 1997 that for any tree $T$, every graph with bounded clique number which does not contain any subdivision of $T$ as an induced subgraph has bounded chromatic number. Scott also conjectured that the same should hold if $T$ is…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-03-03 Jérémie Chalopin , Louis Esperet , Zhentao Li , Patrice Ossona de Mendez

For a graph $G$, let $\chi(G)$ ($\omega(G)$) denote its chromatic (clique) number. A $P_2+P_3$ is the graph obtained by taking the disjoint union of a two-vertex path $P_2$ and a three-vertex path $P_3$. A $\bar{P_2+P_3}$ is the complement…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-05-19 Arnab Char , T. Karthick

The path eccentricity of a connected graph $G$ is the minimum integer $k$ such that $G$ has a path such that every vertex is at distance at most $k$ from the path. A result of Duffus, Jacobson, and Gould from 1981 states that every…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-08-21 Sylwia Cichacz , Claire Hilaire , Tomáš Masařík , Jana Masaříková , Martin Milanič

For a number $l\geq 2$, let ${\cal{G}}_l$ denote the family of graphs which have girth $2l+1$ and have no odd hole with length greater than $2l+1$. Wu, Xu and Xu conjectured that every graph in $\bigcup_{l\geq 2} {\cal{G}}_{l}$ is…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-07-06 Yan Wang , Rong Wu

A graph is called $2K_2$-free if it does not contain two independent edges as an induced subgraph. Mou and Pasechnik conjectured that every $\frac{3}{2}$-tough $2K_2$-free graph with at least three vertices has a spanning trail with maximum…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2016-09-29 Guantao Chen , M. N. Ellingham , Akira Saito , Songling Shan

Let $P_k$ be a path, $C_k$ a cycle on $k$ vertices, and $K_{k,k}$ a complete bipartite graph with $k$ vertices on each side of the bipartition. We prove that (1) for any integers $k, t>0$ and a graph $H$ there are finitely many subgraph…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2017-03-08 Marcin Kamiński , Anna Pstrucha

In the classical cop and robber game, two players, the cop C and the robber R, move alternatively along edges of a finite graph G. The cop captures the robber if both players are on the same vertex at the same moment of time. A graph G is…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2015-03-17 Jérémie Chalopin , Victor Chepoi , Nicolas Nisse , Yann Vaxès

The Erd\H{o}s--Gallai Theorem states that for $k\geq 3$ every graph on $n$ vertices with more than $\frac{1}{2}(k-1)(n-1)$ edges contains a cycle of length at least $k$. Kopylov proved a strengthening of this result for 2-connected graphs…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2017-09-13 Ruth Luo

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

In the ordinary version of the pursuit-evasion game "cops and robbers", a team of cops and a robber occupy vertices of a graph and alternately move along the graph's edges, with perfect information about each other. If a cop lands on the…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2016-06-29 Brendan W. Sullivan , Nikolas Townsend , Mikayla Werzanski

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

We provide a sublinear bound on the cop throttling number of a connected graph. Related to the graph searching game Cops and Robbers, the cop throttling number, written $\mathrm{th}_c(G)$, is given by…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2019-01-28 Anthony Bonato , Sean English

A {\it dynamic $k$-coloring} of a graph $G$ is a proper $k$-coloring of the vertices of $G$ such that every vertex of degree at least 2 in $G$ will be adjacent to vertices with at least 2 different colors. The smallest number $k$ for which…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2007-11-20 Xueliang Li , Wenli Zhou

This paper studies $k$-claw-free graphs, exploring the connection between an extremal combinatorics question and the power of a convex program in approximating the maximum-weight independent set in this graph class. For the extremal…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2023-08-31 Parinya Chalermsook , Ameet Gadekar , Kamyar Khodamoradi , Joachim Spoerhase

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,…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2024-10-31 Jean-Lou De Carufel , Paola Flocchini , Nicola Santoro , Frédéric Simard