Graphs which satisfy a Vizing-like bound for power domination of Cartesian products

Abstract

Power domination is a two-step observation process that is used to monitor power networks and can be viewed as a combination of domination and zero forcing. Given a graph $G$, a subset $S\subseteq V(G)$ that can observe all vertices of $G$ using this process is known as a power dominating set of $G$, and the power domination number of $G$, ${\gamma }_P(G)$, is the minimum number of vertices in a power dominating set. We introduce a new partition on the vertices of a graph to provide a lower bound for the power domination number. We also consider the power domination number of the Cartesian product of two graphs, $G\square H$, and show certain graphs satisfy a Vizing-like bound with regards to the power domination number. In particular, we prove that for any two trees $T_1$ and $T_2$, ${\gamma }_P(T_1){\gamma }_P(T_2)\le {\gamma }_P(T_1\square T_2)$.