The 2-domination number of cylindrical graphs

A vertex subset S of a graph G is said to 2-dominate the graph if each vertex not in S has at least two neighbors in it. As usual, the associated parameter is the minimum cardinal of a 2-dominating set, which is called the 2-domination number of the graph G . We present both lower and upper bounds of the 2-domination number of cylinders, which are the Cartesian products of a path and a cycle. These bounds allow us to compute the exact value of the 2-domination number of cylinders where the path is arbitrary, and the order of the cycle is n ≡ 0 ( mod 3 ) and as large as desired. In the case of the lower bound, we adapt the technique of the wasted domination to this parameter and we use the so-called tropical matrix product to obtain the desired bound. Moreover, we provide a regular patterned construction of a minimum 2-dominating set in the cylinders having the mentioned cycle order.