The Game of Cops and Robbers on Graphs

A new book

by Anthony Bonato and Richard Nowakowski

Published by

as part of the Student Mathematical Library

Description: This book is the first and only one of its kind on the topic of Cops and Robbers games, and more generally, on the field of vertex pursuit games on graphs. The book is written in a lively and highly readable fashion, which should appeal to both senior undergraduates and experts in the field (and everyone in between). One of the main goals of the book is to bring together the key results in the field; as such, it presents structural, probabilistic, and algorithmic results on Cops and Robbers games. Several recent and new results are discussed, along with a comprehensive set of references. The book is suitable for self-study or as a textbook, owing in part to the over 200 exercises. The reader will gain insight into all the main directions of research in the field and will be exposed to a number of open problems.

Audience: Undergraduate and graduate students, pure and applied mathematicians, computer scientists, and all those interested in graph theory or networks.

Excerpts from reviews:

"The authors do a wonderful job of keeping the exposition lively and engaging, while still covering some deep mathematics and introducing some fascinating ideas. The technical background required to read the book is relatively low, and the authors do a good job of introducing the relevant background as needed. For these reasons, as well as the fact that the subject is itself engaging, this is a book that I would happily hand to an undergraduate math major for an independent study, capstone project, or even just to read for fun! But it is also a book that I think any mathematician could pick up and quickly learn something new and interesting. And I cannot think of a higher compliment to give than that."
-Darren Glass, for MAA Reviews.

"The book is well written, informative and fun to read. It easily meets the goals of surveying the main directions in the area, and of providing a tool through which one could learn about games and graphs. Thus, it is useful both as an introduction and a reference."
-Gary MacGillivray, for AMS Mathematical Reviews.

Order now from the AMS or Amazon.com.

Student Mathematical Library 2011; approx. 267 pp; softcover
Volume: 61
ISBN-10: 0-8218-5347-3
ISBN-13: 978-0-8218-5347-4
List Price: US$45
Member Price: US$36
Order Code: STML/61

Some known errors and some fixes.

Some pages from the book (pdf files):

Table of contents

Preface

Preview of Chapter 1