Total Forcing and Zero Forcing in Claw-Free Cubic Graphs

Abstract: A dynamic coloring of the vertices of a graph $G$ starts with an initial subset $S$ of colored vertices, with all remaining vertices being non-colored. At each discrete time interval, a colored vertex with exactly one non-colored neighbor forces this non-colored neighbor to be colored. The initial set $S$ is called a forcing set (zero forcing set) of $G$ if, by iteratively applying the forcing process, every vertex in $G$ becomes colored. If the initial set $S$ has the added property that it induces a subgraph of $G$ without isolated vertices, then $S$ is called a total forcing set in $G$. The total forcing number of $G$, denoted $F_t(G)$, is the minimum cardinality of a total forcing set in $G$. We prove that if $G$ is a connected cubic graph of order~$n$ that has a spanning $2$-factor consisting of triangles, then $F_t(G) \le \frac{1}{2}n$. More generally, we prove that if $G$ is a connected, claw-free, cubic graph of order~$n \ge 6$, then $F_t(G) \le \frac{1}{2}n$, where a claw-free graph is a graph that does not contain $K_{1,3}$ as an induced subgraph. The graphs achieving equality in these bounds are characterized.