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Dominating Set


A dominating set of a graph G is a subset S of its vertex set V(G) such that every graph vertex is either in S or adjacent to a graph vertex in S. Writing N_G[S] for the set of these vertices, this condition is N_G[S]=V(G).

A dominating set of smallest size is called a minimum dominating set and its size is known as the domination number. A dominating set that does not contain any other dominating set as a proper subset is called a minimal dominating set.

DominatingSet

For example, in the Petersen graph illustrated above, the set S={1,2,9} is a dominating set (and, in fact, a minimum dominating set).

The domination polynomial encodes the numbers of dominating sets of various sizes.

Other variants of the usual dominating set can be defined, including the so-called total dominating set.

If a set is dominating and irredundant, it is maximal irredundant and minimal dominating (Mynhardt and Roux 2020).

A dominating set is minimal dominating iff it is irredundant (Mynhardt and Roux 2020).

Precomputed dominating sets for many named graphs can be obtained in the Wolfram Language using GraphData[graph, "DominatingSets"].


See also

Connected Domination Number, Domatic Number, Domatic Partition, Dominance, Domination Number, Domination Polynomial, Eternal Dominating Set, Minimal Connected Dominating Set, Minimal Dominating Set, Minimum Dominating Set, Total Dominating Set

Portions of this entry contributed by Nicolas Bray

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References

Alikhani, S. and Peng, Y.-H. "Introduction to Domination Polynomial of a Graph." Ars Combin. 114, 257-266, 2014.Garey, M. R. and Johnson, D. S. Computers and Intractability: A Guide to the Theory of NP-Completeness. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1983.Hedetniemi, S. T. and Laskar, R. C. "A. Bibliography on Dominating Sets in Graphs and Some Basic Definitions of Domination Parameters." Disc. Math. 86, 257-277, 1990.Mynhardt, C. M. and Roux, A. "Irredundance Graphs." 14 Apr. 2020. https://arxiv.org/abs/1812.03382.

Referenced on Wolfram|Alpha

Dominating Set

Cite this as:

Weisstein, Eric W., with contributions by Nicolas Bray. "Dominating Set." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Resource. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/DominatingSet.html

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