Offensive alliances in graphs

Abstract

A set S is an offensive alliance if for every vertex v in its boundary N(S) − S it holds that the majority of vertices in v’s closed neighbourhood are in S. The offensive alliance number is the minimum cardinality of an offensive alliance. In this paper we explore the bounds on the offensive alliance and the strong offensive alliance numbers (where a strict majority is required). In particular, we show that the offensive alliance number is at most 2/3 the order and the strong offensive alliance number is at most 5/6 the order. 1