Searching cycle-disjoint graphs

Abstract

In this paper, we study the problem of computing the minimum number of searchers who can capture an intruder hiding in a graph. We propose a linear time algorithm for computing the vertex separation and the optimal layout for a unicyclic graph. The best algorithm known so far is given by Ellis et al. (2004) and needs O(n log n) time, where n is the number of vertices in the graph. By a linear-time transformation, we can compute the search number and the optimal search strategy for a unicyclic graph in linear time. We show how to compute the search number for a k-ary cycle-disjoint graph. We also present some results on approximation algorithms. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.