PIMS-UVic Discrete Math Seminar: Michael Young

Zero forcing is a type of graph propagation based on the color-change rule: Given graph $G$, if each vertex of $G$ is colored either white or blue, and vertex $v$ is a blue vertex with only one white neighbor $w$, then change the color of $w$ to blue. In this talk we prove a conjecture formulated by the automated conjecturing program called \emph{TxGraffiti}. The conjecture states that in a claw-free graph, the vertex cover number of the graph is at least the zero forcing number of the graph. We also prove a relationships about the zero forcing and independence number of a connected subcubic graph.