A \emph{$k$-tree} is a chordal graph with no $(k+2)$-clique. An \emph{$\ell$-tree-partition} of a graph $G$ is a vertex partition of $G$ into `bags', such that contracting each bag to a single vertex gives an $\ell$-tree (after deleting loops and replacing parallel edges by a single edge). We prove that for all $k\geq\ell\geq0$, every $k$-tree has an $\ell$-tree-partition in which every bag induces a connected $\floor{k/(\ell+1)}$-tree. An analogous result is proved for oriented $k$-trees.
Let G=(A,B,E) be a bipartite graph with color classes A and B. The graph G is chordal bipartite if G has no induced cycle of length more than four. Let G=(V,E) be a graph. A feedback vertex set F is a set of vertices F subset V such that G-F is a forest. The feedback vertex set problem asks for a feedback vertex set of minimal cardinality. We show that the feedback vertex set problem can be solved in polynomial time on chordal bipartite graphs.
For an integer $k\ge 3$, a $k$-path vertex cover of a graph $G=(V,E)$ is a set $T\subseteq V$ that shares a vertex with every path subgraph of order $k$ in $G$. The minimum cardinality of a $k$-path vertex cover is denoted by $ψ_k(G)$. We give estimates -- mostly upper bounds -- on $ψ_k(G)$ in terms of various parameters, including vertex degrees and the number of vertices and edges. The problem is also considered on chordal graphs and planar graphs.
Let $G$ be a graph with the usual shortest-path metric. A graph is $δ$-hyperbolic if for every geodesic triangle $T$, any side of $T$ is contained in a $δ$-neighborhood of the union of the other two sides. A graph is chordal if every induced cycle has at most three edges. A vertex separator set in a graph is a set of vertices that disconnects two vertices. In this paper we study the relation between vertex separator sets, some chordality properties which are natural generalizations of being chordal and the hyperbolicity of the graph. We also give a characterization of being quasi-isometric to …
Reed and Seymour [1998] asked whether every graph has a partition into induced connected non-empty bipartite subgraphs such that the quotient graph is chordal. If true, this would have significant ramifications for Hadwiger's Conjecture. We prove that the answer is `no'. In fact, we show that the answer is still `no' for several relaxations of the question.
We introduce a new subclass of chordal graphs that generalizes split graphs, which we call well-partitioned chordal graphs. Split graphs are graphs that admit a partition of the vertex set into cliques that can be arranged in a star structure, the leaves of which are of size one. Well-partitioned chordal graphs are a generalization of this concept in the following two ways. First, the cliques in the partition can be arranged in a tree structure, and second, each clique is of arbitrary size. We provide a characterization of well-partitioned chordal graphs by forbidden induced subgraphs, and giv…
The biclique partition number $(\text{bp})$ of a graph $G$ is referred to as the least number of complete bipartite (biclique) subgraphs that are required to cover the edges of the graph exactly once. In this paper, we show that the biclique partition number ($\text{bp}$) of a co-chordal (complementary graph of chordal) graph $G = (V, E)$ is less than the number of maximal cliques ($\text{mc}$) of its complementary graph: a chordal graph $G^c = (V, E^c)$. We first provide a general framework of the ``divide and conquer" heuristic of finding minimum biclique partitions of co-chordal graphs base…
The reconfiguration graph $R_k(G)$ of the $k$-colourings of a graph $G$ contains as its vertex set the $k$-colourings of $G$ and two colourings are joined by an edge if they differ in colour on just one vertex of $G$. We show that for each $k \geq 3$ there is a $k$-colourable weakly chordal graph $G$ such that $R_{k+1}(G)$ is disconnected. We also introduce a subclass of $k$-colourable weakly chordal graphs which we call $k$-colourable compact graphs and show that for each $k$-colourable compact graph $G$ on $n$ vertices, $R_{k+1}(G)$ has diameter $O(n^2)$. We show that this class contains all…
In this paper, we consider the generalization of chordal graphs to clutters proposed by Bigdeli, et al in J. Combin. Theory, Series A (2017). Assume that $\mathcal{C}$ is a $d$-dimensional uniform clutter. It is known that if $\mathcal{C}$ is chordal, then $I(\bar{\mathcal{C}})$ has a linear resolution over all fields. The converse has recently been rejected, but the following question which poses a weaker version of the converse is still open: "if $I(\bar{\mathcal{C}})$ has linear quotients, is $\mathcal{C}$ necessarily chordal?". Here, by introducing the concept of the ascent of a clutter, w…
If $M$ is an $m \times m$ matrix over $\{ 0, 1, \ast \}$, an $M$-partition of a graph $G$ is a partition $(V_1, \dots V_m)$ such that $V_i$ is completely adjacent (non-adjacent) to $V_j$ if $M_{ij} = 1$ ($M_{ij} = 0$), and there are no further restrictions between $V_i$ and $V_j$ if $M_{ij} = \ast$. Having an $M$-partition is a hereditary property, thus it can be characterized by a set of minimal obstructions (forbidden induced subgraphs minimal with the property of not having an $M$-partition). It is known that for every $3 \times 3$ matrix $M$ over $\{ 0, 1, \ast \}$, there are finitely many…
In this paper, structural properties of chordal graphs are analysed, in order to establish a relationship between these structures and integer Laplacian eigenvalues. We present the characterization of chordal graphs with equal vertex and algebraic connectivities, by means of the vertices that compose the minimal vertex separators of the graph; we stablish a sufficient condition for the cardinality of a maximal clique to appear as an integer Laplacian eigenvalue. Finally, we review two subclasses of chordal graphs, showing for them some new properties.
In this paper, we establish the relation between classic invariants of graphs and their integer Laplacian eigenvalues, focusing on a subclass of chordal graphs, the strictly chordal graphs, and pointing out how their computation can be efficiently implemented. Firstly we review results concerning general graphs showing that the number of universal vertices and the degree of false and true twins provide integer Laplacian eigenvalues and their multiplicities. Afterwards, we prove that many integer Laplacian eigenvalues of a strictly chordal graph are directly related to particular simplicial ver…
The following question was raised by Tuza in 1990 and Erdos et al. in 1992: if every edge of an n-vertex chordal graph G is contained in a clique of size at least four, does G have a clique transversal, i.e., a set of vertices meeting all non-trivial maximal cliques, of size at most n/4? We prove that every such graph G has a clique transversal of size at most 2(n-1)/7 if n>=5, which is the best possible bound.
The leafage l(G) of a chordal graph G is the minimum number of leaves of a tree in which G has an intersection representation by subtrees. We obtain upper and lower bounds on l(G) and compute it on special classes. The maximum of l(G) on n-vertex graphs is n - lg n - (1/2) lg lg n + O(1). The proper leafage l*(G) is the minimum number of leaves when no subtree may contain another; we obtain upper and lower bounds on l*(G). Leafage equals proper leafage on claw-free chordal graphs. We use asteroidal sets and structural properties of chordal graphs.
For a family of graphs $\mathcal{F}$, Weighted $\mathcal{F}$-Deletion is the problem for which the input is a vertex weighted graph $G=(V,E)$ and the goal is to delete $S\subseteq V$ with minimum weight such that $G\setminus S\in\mathcal{F}$. Designing a constant-factor approximation algorithm for large subclasses of perfect graphs has been an interesting research direction. Block graphs, 3-leaf power graphs, and interval graphs are known to admit constant-factor approximation algorithms, but the question is open for chordal graphs and distance-hereditary graphs. In this paper, we add one more…
Given a graph G and integers b and w. The black-and-white coloring problem asks if there exist disjoint sets of vertices B and W with |B|=b and |W|=w such that no vertex in B is adjacent to any vertex in W. In this paper we show that the problem is polynomial when restricted to cographs, distance-hereditary graphs, interval graphs and strongly chordal graphs. We show that the problem is NP-complete on splitgraphs.
In a graph $G=(V,E)$ with no isolated vertex, a dominating set $D \subseteq V$, is called a semitotal dominating set if for every vertex $u \in D$ there is another vertex $v \in D$, such that distance between $u$ and $v$ is at most two in $G$. Given a graph $G=(V,E)$ without isolated vertices, the Minimum Semitotal Domination problem is to find a minimum cardinality semitotal dominating set of $G$. The semitotal domination number, denoted by $γ_{t2}(G)$, is the minimum cardinality of a semitotal dominating set of $G$. The decision version of the problem remains NP-complete even when restricted…
A set $S\subseteq V(G)$ of a graph $G$ is a dominating set if each vertex has a neighbor in $S$ or belongs to $S$. Let $γ(G)$ be the cardinality of a minimum dominating set in $G$. The bondage number $b(G)$ of a graph $G$ is the smallest cardinality of a set edges $A\subseteq E(G)$ such that $γ(G-A)=γ(G)+1$. A chordal graph is a graph with no induced cycle of length four or more. In this paper, we prove that the bondage number of a chordal graph $G$ is at most the order of its maximum clique, that is, $b(G)\leq ω(G)$. We show that this bound is best possible.
One of the more recent generalizations of the Erdös-Ko-Rado theorem, formulated by Holroyd, Spencer and Talbot, defines the Erdös-Ko-Rado property for graphs in the following manner: for a graph G and a positive integer r, G is said to be r-EKR if no intersecting subfamily of the family of all independent vertex sets of size r is larger than the largest star, where a star centered at a vertex v is the family of all independent sets of size $r$ containing v. In this paper, we prove that if G is a disjoint union of chordal graphs, including at least one singleton, then G is r-EKR if $r\leq mu(G)…
Shearer gave a general theorem characterizing the family $\LLL$ of dependency graphs labeled with probabilities $p_v$ which have the property that for any family of events with a dependency graph from $\LLL$ (whose vertex-labels are upper bounds on the probabilities of the events), there is a positive probability that none of the events from the family occur. We show that, unlike the standard Lovász Local Lemma---which is less powerful than Shearer's condition on every nonempty graph---a recently proved `Lefthanded' version of the Local Lemma is equivalent to Shearer's condition for all chorda…
A graph is $k$-chordal if it does not have an induced cycle with length greater than $k$. We call a graph chordal if it is $3$-chordal. Let $G$ be a graph. The distance between the vertices $x$ and $y$, denoted by $d_{G}(x,y)$, is the length of a shortest path from $x$ to $y$ in $G$. The eccentricity of a vertex $x$ is defined as $ε_{G}(x)= \max\{d_{G}(x,y)|y\in V(G)\}$. The radius of $G$ is defined as $Rad(G)=\min\{ε_{G}(x)|x\in V(G)\}$. The diameter of $G$ is defined as $Diam(G)=\max\{ε_{G}(x)|x\in V(G)\}$. The graph induced by the set of vertices of $G$ with eccentricity equal to the radius…
A proper vertex coloring of a graph is a mapping of its vertices on a set of colors, such that two adjacent vertices are not mapped to the same color. This constraint may be interpreted in terms of the distance between to vertices and so a more general coloring concept can be defined: The strong coloring of a graph. So a k-strong coloring is a coloring where two vertices may not have the same color if their distance to each other is at most k. The 2-strong coloring of the line graph is known as the strong edge coloring. Coloring the kth power G^k of a graph G is the same as finding a k-strong …
Let $G$ be a graph on $V$. A vertex subset $S \subset V$ is called a cover of $G$ if its complement is an independent set, and $S$ is called a noncover if it is not a cover of $G$. A noncover complex $NC(G)$ of $G$ is the simplicial complex on $V$ whose faces are noncovers of $G$. The independence domination number $ iγ(G)$ of $G$ is the minimum integer $k$ such that every independent set of $G$ can be dominated by $k$ vertices. In this note, we prove that $NC(G)$ is $(|V|- iγ(G)-1)$-collapsible.
Hardness of Vertex Splitting: Cographs, Chordal Graphs, and Beyond
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Berhampur（印度科学教育研究所布兰普尔分校）；The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, HBNI（数学科学研究所，HBNI）；Indian Institute of Technology Dharwad（达瓦尔德印度理工学院）
An acyclic digraph each vertex of which has indegree at most $i$ and outdegree at most $j$ is called an $(i, j)$ digraph for some positive integers $i$ and $j$. Lee {\it et al.} (2017) studied the phylogeny graphs of $(2, 2)$ digraphs and gave sufficient conditions and necessary conditions for $(2, 2)$ digraphs having chordal phylogeny graphs. Their work was motivated by problems related to evidence propagation in a Bayesian network for which it is useful to know which acyclic digraphs have their moral graphs being chordal (phylogeny graphs are called moral graphs in Bayesian network theory). …
Let $G=(V, E)$ be a graph, where $V$ and $E$ are the vertex and edge sets, respectively. For two disjoint subsets $A$ and $B$ of $V$, we say $A$ \textit{dominates} $B$ if every vertex of $B$ is adjacent to at least one vertex of $A$ in $G$. A vertex partition $π= \{V_1, V_2, \ldots, V_k\}$ of $G$ is called a \emph{transitive $k$-partition} if $V_i$ dominates $V_j$ for all $i,j$, where $1\leq i<j\leq k$. The maximum integer $k$ for which the above partition exists is called \emph{transitivity} of $G$ and it is denoted by $Tr(G)$. The \textsc{Maximum Transitivity Problem} is to find a transitive…
The perfect phylogeny problem is a classic problem in computational biology, where we seek an unrooted phylogeny that is compatible with a set of qualitative characters. Such a tree exists precisely when an intersection graph associated with the character set, called the partition intersection graph, can be triangulated using a restricted set of fill edges. Semple and Steel used the partition intersection graph to characterize when a character set has a unique perfect phylogeny. Bordewich, Huber, and Semple showed how to use the partition intersection graph to find a maximum compatible set of …
Truemper configurations (thetas, pyramids, prisms, and wheels) have played an important role in the study of complex hereditary graph classes (e.g. the class of perfect graphs and the class of even-hole-free graphs), appearing both as excluded configurations, and as configurations around which graphs can be decomposed. In this paper, we study the structure of graphs that contain (as induced subgraphs) no Truemper configurations other than (possibly) universal wheels and twin wheels. We also study several subclasses of this class. We use our structural results to analyze the complexity of the r…
Characterization of k-chordal graphs based on the existence of a "simplicial path" was shown in [Chv{á}tal et al. Note: Dirac-type characterizations of graphs without long chordless cycles. Discrete Mathematics, 256, 445-448, 2002]. We give a characterization of k-chordal graphs which is a generalization of the known characterization of chordal graphs due to [G. A. Dirac. On rigid circuit graphs. Abh. Math. Sem. Univ. Hamburg, 25, 71-76, 1961] that use notions of a "simplicial vertex" and a "simplicial ordering".
We consider a natural combinatorial optimization problem on chordal graphs, the class of graphs with no induced cycle of length four or more. A subset of vertices of a chordal graph is (monophonically) convex if it contains the vertices of all chordless paths between any two vertices of the set. The problem is to find a maximum-weight convex subset of a given vertex-weighted chordal graph. It generalizes previously studied special cases in trees and split graphs. It also happens to be closely related to the closure problem in partially ordered sets and directed graphs. We give the first polyno…
\emph{Strictly Chordality-$k$ graphs ($SC_k$)} are graphs which are either cycle-free or every induced cycle is of length exactly $k, k \geq 3$. Strictly chordality-3 and strictly chordality-4 graphs are well known chordal and chordal bipartite graphs, respectively. For $k\geq 5$, the study has been recently initiated in \cite{sadagopan} and various structural and algorithmic results are reported. In this paper, we show that maximum independent set (MIS), minimum vertex cover, minimum dominating set, feedback vertex set (FVS), odd cycle transversal (OCT), even cycle transversal (ECT) and Stein…
Let $G$ be a graph having a vertex $v$ such that $H = G - v$ is a trivially perfect graph. We give a polynomial-time algorithm for the problem of deciding whether it is possible to add at most $k$ edges to $G$ to obtain a trivially perfect graph. This is a slight variation of the well-studied {\sc Edge Completion}, also known as {\sc Minimum Fill-In}, problem. We also show that if $H$ is a chordal graph, then the problem of deciding whether it is possible to add at most $k$ edges to $G$ to obtain a chordal graph is \NP-complete.
For a graph $G$, the $k$-recolouring graph $\mathcal{R}_k(G)$ is the graph whose vertices are the $k$-colourings of $G$ and two colourings are joined by an edge if they differ in colour on exactly one vertex. We prove that for all $n \ge 1$, there exists a $k$-colourable weakly chordal graph $G$ where $\mathcal{R}_{k+n}(G)$ is disconnected, answering an open question of Feghali and Fiala. We also show that for every $k$-colourable $3K_1$-free graph $G$, $\mathcal{R}_{k+1}(G)$ is connected with diameter at most $4|V(G)|$.
We consider a variant of the Cops and Robber game, introduced by Fomin, Golovach, Kratochvil, in which the robber has unbounded speed, i.e. can take any path from her vertex in her turn, but she is not allowed to pass through a vertex occupied by a cop. We study this game on interval graphs, chordal graphs, planar graphs, and hypercube graphs. Let c_{\infty}(G) denote the number of cops needed to capture the robber in graph G in this variant. We show that if G is an interval graph, then c_{\infty}(G) = O(sqrt(|V(G)|)), and we give a polynomial-time 3-approximation algorithm for finding c_{\inf…
A b-coloring of a graph is a proper coloring of its vertices such that each color class contains a vertex adjacent to at least one vertex of every other color class. The b-chromatic number of a graph is the largest integer k such that the graph has a b-coloring with k colors. In this work we present lower bounds for the b-chromatic number of a vertex-deleted subgraph of a graph, particularly regarding two important classes, quasi-line and chordal graphs. We also get bounds for the b-chromatic number of G -{x}, when G is a graph with large girth.
Connected Vertex Cover is one of the classical problems of computer science, already mentioned in the monograph of Garey and Johnson. Although the optimization and decision variants of finding connected vertex covers of minimum size or weight are well studied, surprisingly there is no work on the enumeration or maximum number of minimal connected vertex covers of a graph. In this paper we show that the maximum number of minimal connected vertex covers of a graph is at most 1.8668^n, and these can be enumerated in time O(1.8668^n). For graphs of chordality at most 5, we are able to give a bette…
We investigate graphs that can be represented as vertex intersections of horizontal and vertical paths in a grid, the so called $B_0$-VPG graphs. Recognizing this class is an NP-complete problem. Although, there exists a polynomial time algorithm for recognizing chordal $B_0$-VPG graphs. In this paper, we present a minimal forbidden induced subgraph characterization of $B_0$-VPG graphs restricted to block graphs. As a byproduct, the proof of the main theorem provides an alternative certifying recognition and representation algorithm for $B_0$-VPG graphs in the class of block graphs.
Hefner [K. A. S. Hefner, K. F. Jones, S. -R. Kim, R. J. Lundgren and F. S. Roberts: $(i,j)$ competition graphs, Discrete Applied Mathematics, 32, (1991) 241-262] characterized acyclic digraphs each vertex of which has inderee and outdegree at most two and whose competition graphs are interval. They called acyclic digraphs each vertex of which has inderee and outdegree at most two $(2,2)$ digraphs. In this paper, we study the phylogeny graphs of $(2,2)$ digraphs. Especially, we give a sufficient condition and necessary conditions for $(2,2)$ digraphs having chordal phylogeny graphs. Phylogeny g…
