On the cop number of generalized Petersen graphs

Taylor Ball, Robert W. Bell, Jonathan Guzman, Madeleine Hanson-Colvin, Nikolas Schonscheck

Published 2015-09-15Version 1

We show that the cop number of every generalized Petersen graph is at most 4. The strategy is to play a modified game of cops and robbers on an infinite cyclic covering space where the objective is to capture the robber or force the robber towards an end of the infinite graph. We prove that finite isometric subtrees are 1-guardable and apply this to determine the exact cop number of some families of generalized Petersen graphs. We also extend these ideas to prove that the cop number of any connected I-graph is at most 5.