Searcharxiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 2610.03892

The Zero Forcing Number of Graph Powers

Aida Abiad·Mary Flagg·Sina Ghasemi Nezhad·Sjanne Zeijlemaker
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

The $k$-th power of a simple graph $G$, denoted $G^k$, is the graph with vertex set $V(G)$ where two vertices are adjacent if they are within distance $k$ in $G$. We investigate the zero forcing number of graph powers. Powers of graphs are much denser and generally not encompassed by existing results on zero forcing of graphs, hence their study requires a different approach. In contrast with the usual zero forcing behavior under edge deletion, we show that the zero forcing parameter (and variations of it) is monotone with respect to taking powers. We also determine the zero forcing number of powers of paths and cycles, together with upper bounds for powers of spiders and of grids. We then present spectral lower bounds on the zero forcing number of graph powers which uniquely use the spectrum of the base graph, as well as linear programming methods to compute these bounds. Finally, we study the sharpness of the derived bounds. To derive our results we use techniques ranging from graph theory, linear algebra and polynomial optimization.

Explore related subjects

math.CO

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Aida Abiad, Mary Flagg, Sina Ghasemi Nezhad, Sjanne Zeijlemaker. 2026-10-02. The Zero Forcing Number of Graph Powers. https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.03892

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Monochromatic non-commuting products

We show that a finite coloring of an amenable group contains `many' monochromatic sets of the form $\{x,y,xy,yx\},$ and natural extensions with more variables. This gives the first combinatorial proof and extensions of Bergelson and McCutcheon's non-commutative Schur theorem. Our main new tool is the introduction of what we call `quasirandom colorings,' a condition that is automatically satisfied by colorings of quasirandom groups, and a reduction to this case.

math.CO↗
arXiv2026

Complete tripartite subgraphs of balanced tripartite graphs with large minimum degree

In 1975 Bollobás, Erdős, and Szemerédi asked what minimum degree guarantees an octahedral subgraph $K_3(2)$ in any tripartite graph $G$ with $n$ vertices in each vertex class. We show that $δ(G)\geq n+2n^{\frac{5}{6}}$ suffices thus improving the bound $n+(1+o(1))n^{\frac{11}{12}}$ of Bhalkikar and Zhao obtained by following their approach. Bollobás, Erdős, and Szemerédi conjectured that $n+cn^{\frac{1}{2}}$ suffices and there are many $K_3(2)$-free tripartite graphs $G$ with $δ(G)\geq n+cn^{\frac{1}{2}}$. We confirm this conjecture under the additional assumption that every vertex in $G$ is adjacent to at least $(1/5+\varepsilon)n$ vertices in any other vertex class.

math.CO↗
arXiv2026

Almost-full transversals in equi-$n$-squares

In 1975, Stein made a wide generalisation of the Ryser-Brualdi-Stein conjecture on transversals in Latin squares, conjecturing that every equi-$n$-square (an $n\times n$ array filled with $n$ symbols where each symbol appears exactly $n$ times) has a transversal of size $n-1$. That is, it should have a collection of $n-1$ entries that share no row, column, or symbol. In 2017, Aharoni, Berger, Kotlar, and Ziv showed that equi-$n$-squares always have a transversal with size at least $2n/3$. In 2019, Pokrovskiy and Sudakov disproved Stein's conjecture by constructing equi-$n$-squares without a transversal of size $n-\frac{\log n}{42}$, but asked whether Stein's conjecture is approximately true. I.e., does an equi-$n$-square always have a transversal with size $(1-o(1))n$? We answer this question in the positive. More specifically, we improve both known bounds, showing that there exist equi-$n$-squares with no transversal of size $n-Ω(\sqrt{n})$ and that every equi-$n$-square contains $n-n^{1-Ω(1)}$ disjoint transversals of size $n-n^{1-Ω(1)}$. Furthermore, we give results for the corresponding problem in globally-bounded colourings of complete graphs, as part of the wider framework of coloured complete directed graphs.

math.CO↗