Abstract
This article deals with random walks on arbitrary graphs. We consider the cover time of finite graphs. That is, we study the expected time needed for a random walk on a finite graph to visit every vertex at least once. We establish an upper bound ofO(n 2) for the expectation of the cover time for regular (or nearly regular) graphs. We prove a lower bound of Ω(n logn) for the expected cover time for trees. We present examples showing all our bounds to be tight.
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Aleliunas, R., Karp, R. M., Lipton, R. J., Lovasz, L., and Rackoff, C. (1979). Random walks, universal traversal sequences, and the complexity of maze problems, 20'th FOCS.
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Mike Saks was supported by NSF-DMS87-03541 and by AFOSR-0271. Jeff Kahn was supported by MCS-83-01867 and by AFOSR-0271.
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Kahn, J.D., Linial, N., Nisan, N. et al. On the cover time of random walks on graphs. J Theor Probab 2, 121–128 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01048274
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01048274