Meyniel's conjecture holds for random d‐regular graphs

In the game of cops and robber, the cops try to capture a robber moving 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. The biggest open conjecture in this area is the one of Meyniel, which asserts that for some absolute constant C, the cop number of every connected graph G is at most . In a separate paper, we showed that Meyniel's conjecture holds asymptotically almost surely for the binomial random graph. The result was obtained by showing that the conjecture holds for a general class of graphs with some specific expansion‐type properties. In this paper, this deterministic result is used to show that the conjecture holds asymptotically almost surely for random d‐regular graphs when d = d(n) ≥ 3.     

Chasing robbers on random graphs: Zigzag theorem

In this paper, we study the vertex pursuit game of Cops and Robbers where 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 the cop number of G. We present asymptotic results for the game of Cops and Robber played on a random graph G(n,p) for a wide range of p = p(n). It has been shown that the cop number as a function of an average degree forms an intriguing zigzag shape. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2010     

Cops and Robbers on Planar‐Directed Graphs

Aigner and Fromme initiated the systematic study of the cop number of a graph by proving the elegant and sharp result that in every connected planar graph, three cops are sufficient to win a natural pursuit game against a single robber. This game, introduced by Nowakowski and Winkler, is commonly known as Cops and Robbers in the combinatorial literature. We extend this study to directed planar graphs, and establish separation from the undirected setting. We exhibit a geometric construction that shows that a sophisticated robber strategy can indefinitely evade three cops on a particular strongly connected planar‐directed graph.     

The capture time of grids

We consider the game of cops and robber played on the Cartesian product of two trees. Assuming the players play perfectly, it is shown that if there are two cops in the game, then the length of the game (known as the 2-capture time of the graph) is equal to half the diameter of the graph. In particular, the 2-capture time of the m×n grid is proved to be .     

Directed Path-width and Monotonicity in Digraph Searching

Directed path-width was defined by Reed, Thomas and Seymour around 1995. The author and P. Hajnal defined a cops-and-robber game on digraphs in 2000. We prove that the two notions are closely related and for any digraph D, the corresponding graph parameters differ by at most one. The result is achieved using the mixed-search technique developed by Bienstock and Seymour. A search is called monotone, in which the robber's territory never increases. We show that there is a mixed-search of D with k cops if and only if there is a monotone mixed-search with k cops. For our cops-and-robber game we get a slightly weaker result: the monotonicity can be guaranteed by using at most one extra cop. On leave from Bolyai Institute, University of Szeged, Hungary. This research has been supported by a Marie Curie Fellowship of the European Community under contract number HPMF-CT-2002-01868 and by OTKA Grants F.030737 and T.34475.     

A cops and robber game in multidimensional grids

We theoretically analyze the ‘cops and robber’ game for the first time in a multidimensional grid. It is shown that in an n-dimensional grid, at least n cops are necessary if one wants to catch the robber for all possible initial configurations. We also present a set of cop strategies for which n cops are provably sufficient to catch the robber. Further, we revisit the game in a two-dimensional grid and provide an independent proof of the fact that the robber can be caught even by a single cop under certain conditions.     

Meyniel's conjecture holds for random graphs

In the game of cops and robber, the cops try to capture a robber moving 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. The biggest open conjecture in this area is the one of Meyniel, which asserts that for some absolute constant C, the cop number of every connected graph G is at most . In this paper, we show that Meyniel's conjecture holds asymptotically almost surely for the binomial random graph , which improves upon existing results showing that asymptotically almost surely the cop number of is provided that for some . We do this by first showing that the conjecture holds for a general class of graphs with some specific expansion‐type properties. This will also be used in a separate paper on random d‐regular graphs, where we show that the conjecture holds asymptotically almost surely when . © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 48, 396–421, 2016     

Bounds on the localization number

We consider the localization game played on graphs, wherein a set of cops attempt to determine the exact location of an invisible robber by exploiting distance probes. The corresponding optimization parameter for a graph G is called the localization number and is written as ζ(G). We settle a conjecture of Bosek et al by providing an upper bound on the chromatic number as a function of the localization number. In particular, we show that every graph with ζ(G) ≤ k has degeneracy less than 3^k and, consequently, satisfies χ(G) ≤ 3^ζ(G). We show further that this degeneracy bound is tight. We also prove that the localization number is at most 2 in outerplanar graphs, and we determine, up to an additive constant, the localization number of hypercubes.     

Hypertree width and related hypergraph invariants

We study the notion of hypertree width of hypergraphs. We prove that, up to a constant factor, hypertree width is the same as a number of other hypergraph invariants that resemble graph invariants such as bramble number, branch width, linkedness, and the minimum number of cops required to win Seymour and Thomas’s robber and cops game.     

How many cyclic subpolytopes can a non-cyclic polytope have?

Acyclic d-polytope is ad-polytope that is combinatorially equivalent to a polytope whose vertices lie on the moment curve {(t, t ², …,t ^d):t∈R}. Every subpolytope of an even-dimensional cyclic polytope is again cyclic. We show that a polytope [or neighborly polytope] withv vertices that is not cyclic has at mostd+1 [respectivelyd]d-dimensional cyclic subpolytopes withv−1 vertices, providedd is even andv≧d+5.     

Cubical d-Polytopes with Few Vertices for d>4

A cubical polytope is a convex polytope all of whose facets are combinatorial cubes. A d-polytope P is called almost simple if, in the graph of P, each vertex of P is d-valent or (d+1)-valent. We show that, for d>4, all but one cubicald -polytopes with up to 2 ^d+1 vertices are almost simple. This provides a complete enumeration of all the cubical d-polytopes with up to 2 ^d+1 vertices, for d>4.     

Dimension Gaps between Representability and Collapsibility

A simplicial complex K\mathsf{K} is called d -representable if it is the nerve of a collection of convex sets in ℝ ^d ; K\mathsf{K} is d -collapsible if it can be reduced to an empty complex by repeatedly removing a face of dimension at most d−1 that is contained in a unique maximal face; and K\mathsf{K} is d -Leray if every induced subcomplex of K\mathsf{K} has vanishing homology of dimension d and larger. It is known that d-representable implies d-collapsible implies d-Leray, and no two of these notions coincide for d≥2. The famous Helly theorem and other important results in discrete geometry can be regarded as results about d-representable complexes, and in many of these results, “d-representable” in the assumption can be replaced by “d-collapsible” or even “d-Leray.”     

Formulae and growth rates of high-dimensional polycubes

A d-dimensional polycube is a facet-connected set of cubes in d dimensions. Fixed polycubes are considered distinct if they differ in their shape or orientation. A proper d-dimensional polycube spans all the d dimensions, that is, the convex hull of the centers of its cubes is d-dimensional. In this paper we prove rigorously some (previously conjectured) closed formulae for fixed (proper and improper) polycubes, and show that the growth-rate limit of the number of polycubes in d dimensions is 2ed−o(d). We conjecture that it is asymptotically equal to (2d−3)e+O(1/d).     

Cubical 4-Polytopes with Few Vertices

A cubical polytope is a convex polytope all of whose facets are conbinatorial cubes. A d-polytope Pis called almost simple if, in the graph of P, each vertex of Pis d-valent of (d+ 1)-valent. It is known that, for d> 4, all but one cubical d-polytopes with up to 2^d+1vertices are almost simple, which provides a complete enumeration of all the cubical d-polytopes with up to 2^d+1vertices. We show that this result is also true for d=4.     

Set systems without a simplex or a cluster

A d-dimensional simplex is a collection of d+1 sets with empty intersection, every d of which have nonempty intersection. A k-uniform d-cluster is a collection of d+1 sets of size k with empty intersection and union of size at most 2k.     

Classification of terminal simplicial reflexive d-polytopes with 3d − 1 vertices

We classify terminal simplicial reflexive d-polytopes with 3d − 1 vertices. They turn out to be smooth Fano d-polytopes. When d is even there is one such polytope up to isomorphism, while there are two when d is uneven.     

Stabbing Simplices by Points and Flats

The following result was proved by Bárány in 1982: For every d≥1, there exists c _d >0 such that for every n-point set S in ℝ ^d , there is a point p∈ℝ ^d contained in at least c _d n ^d+1−O(n ^d ) of the d-dimensional simplices spanned by S. We investigate the largest possible value of c _d . It was known that c _d ≤1/(2 ^d (d+1)!) (this estimate actually holds for every point set S). We construct sets showing that c _d ≤(d+1)^−(d+1), and we conjecture that this estimate is tight. The best known lower bound, due to Wagner, is c _d ≥γ _d :=(d ²+1)/((d+1)!(d+1) ^d+1); in his method, p can be chosen as any centerpoint of S. We construct n-point sets with a centerpoint that is contained in no more than γ _d n ^d+1+O(n ^d ) simplices spanned by S, thus showing that the approach using an arbitrary centerpoint cannot be further improved.     

Mechanistic explanation of integral calculus

The anatomic features of filaments, drawn through graphs of an integral F(x) and its derivative f(x), clarify why integrals automatically calculate area swept out by derivatives. Each miniscule elevation change dF on an integral, as a linear measure, equals the magnitude of square area of a corresponding vertical filament through its derivative. The sum of all dF increments combine to produce a range ΔF on the integral that equals the exact summed area swept out by the derivative over that domain. The sum of filament areas is symbolized ∫f(x)dx, where dx is the width of any filament and f(x) is the ordinal value of the derivative and thus, the intrinsic slope of the integral point dF/dx. dx displacement widths, and corresponding dF displacement heights, along the integral are not uniform and are determined by the intrinsic slope of the function at each point. Among many methods that demonstrate why integrals calculate area traced out by derivatives, this presents the physical meaning of differentials dx and dF, and how the variation in each along an integral curve explicitly computes area at any point traced by the derivative. This area is the filament width dx times its height, the ordinal value of the derivative function f(x), which is the tangent slope dF/dx on the integral. This explains thoroughly but succinctly the precise mechanism of integral calculus.     

Extremal graphs of diameter two and given maximum degree,embeddable in a fixed surface

It is known that for each d there exists a graph of diameter two and maximum degree d which has at least ⌈(d/2)⌉ ⌈(d + 2)/2⌉ vertices. In contrast with this, we prove that for every surface S there is a constant d_s such that each graph of diameter two and maximum degree d ≥ d_s, which is embeddable in S, has at most ⌊(3/2)d⌋ + 1 vertices. Moreover, this upper bound is best possible, and we show that extremal graphs can be found among surface triangulations. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.