Algorithmic Aspects of Switch Cographs

This paper introduces the notion of involution module, the first generalization of the modular decomposition of 2-structure which has a unique linear-sized decomposition tree. We derive an O(n^2) decomposition algorithm and we take advantage of the involution modular decomposition tree to state several algorithmic results. Cographs are the graphs that are totally decomposable w.r.t modular decomposition. In a similar way, we introduce the class of switch cographs, the class of graphs that are totally decomposable w.r.t involution modular decomposition. This class generalizes the class of cographs and is exactly the class of (Bull, Gem, Co-Gem, C_5)-free graphs. We use our new decomposition tool to design three practical algorithms for the maximum cut, vertex cover and vertex separator problems. The complexity of these problems was still unknown for this class of graphs. This paper also improves the complexity of the maximum clique, the maximum independant set, the chromatic number and the maximum clique cover problems by giving efficient algorithms, thanks to the decomposition tree. Eventually, we show that this class of graphs has Clique-Width at most 4 and that a Clique-Width expression can be computed in linear time

A survey on algorithmic aspects of modular decomposition

The modular decomposition is a technique that applies but is not restricted to graphs. The notion of module naturally appears in the proofs of many graph theoretical theorems. Computing the modular decomposition tree is an important preprocessing step to solve a large number of combinatorial optimization problems. Since the first polynomial time algorithm in the early 70's, the algorithmic of the modular decomposition has known an important development. This paper survey the ideas and techniques that arose from this line of research

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

Graph classes and forbidden patterns on three vertices

This paper deals with graph classes characterization and recognition. A popular way to characterize a graph class is to list a minimal set of forbidden induced subgraphs. Unfortunately this strategy usually does not lead to an efficient recognition algorithm. On the other hand, many graph classes can be efficiently recognized by techniques based on some interesting orderings of the nodes, such as the ones given by traversals. We study specifically graph classes that have an ordering avoiding some ordered structures. More precisely, we consider what we call patterns on three nodes, and the recognition complexity of the associated classes. In this domain, there are two key previous works. Damashke started the study of the classes defined by forbidden patterns, a set that contains interval, chordal and bipartite graphs among others. On the algorithmic side, Hell, Mohar and Rafiey proved that any class defined by a set of forbidden patterns can be recognized in polynomial time. We improve on these two works, by characterizing systematically all the classes defined sets of forbidden patterns (on three nodes), and proving that among the 23 different classes (up to complementation) that we find, 21 can actually be recognized in linear time. Beyond this result, we consider that this type of characterization is very useful, leads to a rich structure of classes, and generates a lot of open questions worth investigating.Comment: Third version version. 38 page