Bounds on expected propagation time of probabilistic zero forcing

Abstract

Probabilistic zero forcing is a coloring game played on a graph where the goal is to color every vertex blue starting with an initial blue vertex set. As long as the graph is connected, if at least one vertex is blue then eventually all of the vertices will be colored blue. The most studied parameter in probabilistic zero forcing is the expected propagation time starting from a given vertex of $G.$ In this paper we improve on upper bounds for the expected propagation time by Geneson and Hogben and Chan et al. in terms of a graph's order and radius. In particular, for a connected graph $G$ of order $n$ and radius $r,$ we prove the bound $\text{ept}(G) = O(r\log(n/r)).$ We also show using Doob's Optional Stopping Theorem and a combinatorial object known as a cornerstone that $\text{ept}(G) \le n/2 + O(\log n).$ Finally, we derive an explicit lower bound $\text{ept}(G)\ge \log_2 \log_2 n.$