All Ordinals are Cop-Robber Ordinals

The game of cops and robbers, played on a fixed graph $G$, is a two-player game, where the cop and the robber (the players) take turns in moving to adjacent vertices. The game finishes if the cop lands on the robber's vertex. In that case we say that the cop wins. If the cop can always win, regardless of the starting positions, we say that $G$ is a cop-win graph. For a finite cop-win graph $G$ we can ask for the minimum number $n$ such that, regardless of the starting positions, the game will end in at most $n$ steps. This number is called the maximum capture time of $G$. By looking at finite paths, we see that any non-negative integer is the maximum capture time for a cop-win graph. What about infinite cop-win graphs? In this case, the notion of capture time is nicely generalised if one works with ordinals, and so the question becomes which ordinals can be the maximum capture time of a cop-win graph? These ordinals are called CR (Cop-Robber)-ordinals. In this paper we fully settle this by showing that all ordinals are CR-ordinals, answering a question of Bonato, Gordinowicz and Hahn.

Publication Details

Journal
arXiv (Cornell University)
Published
2025-09-04
Primary Topic
Geochemistry and Geologic Mapping
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
Controls
|||
ALL TIME
JAN
FEB
MAR
APR
MAY
JUN
JUL
AUG
SEP
OCT
article

All Ordinals are Cop-Robber Ordinals

arXiv (Cornell University)
Geochemistry and Geologic Mapping
article

All Ordinals are Cop-Robber Ordinals

article en

Abstract

The game of cops and robbers, played on a fixed graph $G$, is a two-player game, where the cop and the robber (the players) take turns in moving to adjacent vertices. The game finishes if the cop lands on the robber's vertex. In that case we say that the cop wins. If the cop can always win, regardless of the starting positions, we say that $G$ is a cop-win graph. For a finite cop-win graph $G$ we can ask for the minimum number $n$ such that, regardless of the starting positions, the game will end in at most $n$ steps. This number is called the maximum capture time of $G$. By looking at finite paths, we see that any non-negative integer is the maximum capture time for a cop-win graph. What about infinite cop-win graphs? In this case, the notion of capture time is nicely generalised if one works with ordinals, and so the question becomes which ordinals can be the maximum capture time of a cop-win graph? These ordinals are called CR (Cop-Robber)-ordinals. In this paper we fully settle this by showing that all ordinals are CR-ordinals, answering a question of Bonato, Gordinowicz and Hahn.

arXiv (Cornell University)
Peace, Justice and strong institutions
Openalex Percentile: Top 51%
Geochemistry and Geologic Mapping
AI Navigator

Ask Laika to Summarize, Analyze, and Connect papers live on the map.

Summarize Papers & Methodologies

Extract key findings, datasets, and comparative methods across publications.

Benchmark Rankings & Visual Analytics

Rank top research institutions, authors, funders, topics, and journals by Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) and paper volume with instant charts.

Connect Distant Disciplines

Bridge topological clusters on the map to find hidden collaborative intersections.