\documentclass[12pt]{article} \usepackage{amsmath,mathrsfs,bbm} \usepackage{amssymb} \textwidth=4.825in \overfullrule=0pt \thispagestyle{empty} \begin{document} \noindent % % {\bf Michael Hoffmann, Ji\v{r}\'{i} Matou\v{s}ek, Yoshio Okamoto and Philipp Zumstein} % % \medskip \noindent % % {\bf The $t$-Pebbling Number is Eventually Linear in~$t$} % % \vskip 5mm \noindent % % % % In graph pebbling games, one considers a distribution of pebbles on the vertices of a graph, and a \emph{pebbling move} consists of taking two pebbles off one vertex and placing one on an adjacent vertex. The \emph{$t$-pebbling number} $\pi_t(G)$ of a graph $G$ is the smallest $m$ such that for every initial distribution of $m$ pebbles on $V(G)$ and every target vertex $x$ there exists a sequence of pebbling moves leading to a distibution with at least $t$ pebbles at $x$. Answering a question of Sieben, we show that for every graph $G$, $\pi_t(G)$ is \emph{eventually linear} in $t$; that is, there are numbers $a,b,t_0$ such that $\pi_t(G)=at+b$ for all $t\ge t_0$. Our result is also valid for weighted graphs, where every edge $e=\{u,v\}$ has some integer weight $\omega(e)\ge 2$, and a pebbling move from $u$ to $v$ removes $\omega(e)$ pebbles at $u$ and adds one pebble to~$v$. \end{document} .