Applications of a new separator theorem for string graphs

An intersection graph of curves in the plane is called a string graph. Matousek almost completely settled a conjecture of the authors by showing that every string graph of m edges admits a vertex separator of size O(\sqrt{m}\log m). In the present note, this bound is combined with a result of the authors, according to which every dense string graph contains a large complete balanced bipartite graph. Three applications are given concerning string graphs G with n vertices: (i) if K_t is not a subgraph of G for some t, then the chromatic number of G is at most (\log n)^{O(\log t)}; (ii) if K_{t,t} is not a subgraph of G, then G has at most t(\log t)^{O(1)}n edges,; and (iii) a lopsided Ramsey-type result, which shows that the Erdos-Hajnal conjecture almost holds for string graphs.Comment: 7 page

Dyck path triangulations and extendability

We introduce the Dyck path triangulation of the cartesian product of two simplices $\Delta_{n-1}\times\Delta_{n-1}$. The maximal simplices of this triangulation are given by Dyck paths, and its construction naturally generalizes to produce triangulations of $\Delta_{r\ n-1}\times\Delta_{n-1}$ using rational Dyck paths. Our study of the Dyck path triangulation is motivated by extendability problems of partial triangulations of products of two simplices. We show that whenever $m\geq k>n$, any triangulation of $\Delta_{m-1}^{(k-1)}\times\Delta_{n-1}$ extends to a unique triangulation of $\Delta_{m-1}\times\Delta_{n-1}$. Moreover, with an explicit construction, we prove that the bound $k>n$ is optimal. We also exhibit interesting interpretations of our results in the language of tropical oriented matroids, which are analogous to classical results in oriented matroid theory.Comment: 15 pages, 14 figures. Comments very welcome

The Effect of Planarization on Width

We study the effects of planarization (the construction of a planar diagram $D$ from a non-planar graph $G$ by replacing each crossing by a new vertex) on graph width parameters. We show that for treewidth, pathwidth, branchwidth, clique-width, and tree-depth there exists a family of $n$-vertex graphs with bounded parameter value, all of whose planarizations have parameter value $\Omega(n)$. However, for bandwidth, cutwidth, and carving width, every graph with bounded parameter value has a planarization of linear size whose parameter value remains bounded. The same is true for the treewidth, pathwidth, and branchwidth of graphs of bounded degree.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures. To appear at the 25th International Symposium on Graph Drawing and Network Visualization (GD 2017

Partitioning Perfect Graphs into Stars

The partition of graphs into "nice" subgraphs is a central algorithmic problem with strong ties to matching theory. We study the partitioning of undirected graphs into same-size stars, a problem known to be NP-complete even for the case of stars on three vertices. We perform a thorough computational complexity study of the problem on subclasses of perfect graphs and identify several polynomial-time solvable cases, for example, on interval graphs and bipartite permutation graphs, and also NP-complete cases, for example, on grid graphs and chordal graphs.Comment: Manuscript accepted to Journal of Graph Theor