Cops and Robber Game with a Fast Robber on Interval, Chordal, and Planar Graphs

Abstract

We consider a variant of the Cops and Robber game, introduced by Fomin, Golovach, Kratochvil, 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. We study this game on interval graphs, chordal graphs, planar graphs, and hypercube graphs. Let c_{\infty}(G) denote the number of cops needed to capture the robber in graph G in this variant. We show that if G is an interval graph, then c_{\infty}(G) = O(sqrt(|V(G)|)), and we give a polynomial-time 3-approximation algorithm for finding c_{\infty}(G) in interval graphs. We prove that for every n there exists an n-vertex chordal graph G with c_{\infty}(G) = Omega(n / \log n). Let tw(G) and Delta(G) denote the treewidth and the maximum degree of G, respectively. We prove that for every G, tw(G) + 1 \leq (Delta(G) + 1) c_{\infty}(G). Using this lower bound for c_{\infty}(G), we show two things. The first is that if G is a planar graph (or more generally, if G does not have a fixed apex graph as a minor), then c_{\infty}(G) = Theta(tw(G)). This immediately leads to an O(1)-approximation algorithm for computing c_{\infty} for planar graphs. The second is that if G is the m-hypercube graph, then there exist constants eta1, eta2>0 such that (eta1) 2^m / (m sqrt(m)) \leq c_{\infty}(G) \leq (eta2) 2^m / m.