The cover pebbling theorem (Q2583674)

This very clearly written short paper gives a proof of the weighted pebbling cover problem: every vertex in the (directed or undirected) graph \(G\) is assigned a natural number \(w(v).\) At the beginning every vertex is populated a certain (probably different) number of pebbles. In every step at one vertex two pebbles are deleted and a new one is born at a neighbour. The general pebbling cover problem is: what is the minimum number of pebbles that for any distribution of them over the vertices one can find an algorithm to end up a configuration, where every vertex \(v\) contains at least \(w(v)\) pebbles. The original pebbling problem is the choice \(w(v)=1\) for all vertices. The problem has a fair size of literature: several papers determined the pebbling cover numbers of special graph classes. \textit{B. Crull} et al. [Discrete Math. 296, 15--23 (2005; Zbl 1066.05140)] conjectured that it is enough to solve the problem for cases where at the beginning all pebbles occupy the same vertex. This paper answers the conjecture affirmatively: giving new, short proofs for every previously known case.