Edge Clique Cover of Claw-free Graphs

The smallest number of cliques, covering all edges of a graph $G$, is called the (edge) clique cover number of $G$ and is denoted by $cc(G)$. It is an easy observation that for every line graph $G$ with $n$ vertices, $cc(G)\leq n$. G. Chen et al. [Discrete Math. 219 (2000), no. 1--3, 17--26; MR1761707] extended this observation to all quasi-line graphs and questioned if the same assertion holds for all claw-free graphs. In this paper, using the celebrated structure theorem of claw-free graphs due to Chudnovsky and Seymour, we give an affirmative answer to this question for all claw-free graphs with independence number at least three. In particular, we prove that if $G$ is a connected claw-free graph on $n$ vertices with $\alpha(G)\geq 3$, then $cc(G)\leq n$ and equality holds if and only if $G$ is either the graph of icosahedron, or the complement of a graph on $10$ vertices called twister or the $p^{th}$ power of the cycle $C_n$, for $1\leq p \leq \lfloor (n-1)/3\rfloor$.Comment: 74 pages, 4 figure

Graph Structure and Coloring

We denote by G=(V,E) a graph with vertex set V and edge set E. A graph G is claw-free if no vertex of G has three pairwise nonadjacent neighbours. Claw-free graphs are a natural generalization of line graphs. This thesis answers several questions about claw-free graphs and line graphs. In 1988, Chvatal and Sbihi proved a decomposition theorem for claw-free perfect graphs. They showed that claw-free perfect graphs either have a clique-cutset or come from two basic classes of graphs called elementary and peculiar graphs. In 1999, Maffray and Reed successfully described how elementary graphs can be built using line graphs of bipartite graphs and local augmentation. However gluing two claw-free perfect graphs on a clique does not necessarily produce claw-free graphs. The first result of this thesis is a complete structural description of claw-free perfect graphs. We also give a construction for all perfect circular interval graphs. This is joint work with Chudnovsky. Erdos and Lovasz conjectured in 1968 that for every graph G and all integers s,t≥ 2 such that s+t-1=χ(G) > ω(G), there exists a partition (S,T) of the vertex set of G such that ω(G|S)≥ s and χ(G|T)≥ t. This conjecture is known in the graph theory community as the Erdos-Lovasz Tihany Conjecture. For general graphs, the only settled cases of the conjecture are when s and t are small. Recently, the conjecture was proved for a few special classes of graphs: graphs with stability number 2, line graphs and quasi-line graphs. The second part of this thesis considers the conjecture for claw-free graphs and presents some progresses on it. This is joint work with Chudnovsky and Fradkin. Reed's ω, ∆, χ conjecture proposes that every graph satisfies χ≤ ⎡½ (Δ+1+ω)⎤ ; it is known to hold for all claw-free graphs. The third part of this thesis considers a local strengthening of this conjecture. We prove the local strengthening for line graphs, then note that previous results immediately tell us that the local strengthening holds for all quasi-line graphs. Our proofs lead to polytime algorithms for constructing colorings that achieve our bounds: The complexity are O(n²) for line graphs and O(n³m²) for quasi-line graphs. For line graphs, this is faster than the best known algorithm for constructing a coloring that achieves the bound of Reed's original conjecture. This is joint work with Chudnovsky, King and Seymour

Connected k-Partition of k-Connected Graphs and c-Claw-Free Graphs

w_k. In particular for the balanced version, i.e. w? = w? == w_k, this gives a partition with 1/3w_i ? w(T_i) ? 3w_i

Forbidden Substructures in Graphs and Trigraphs, and Related Coloring Problems

Given a graph G, χ(G) denotes the chromatic number of G, and ω(G) denotes the clique number of G (i.e. the maximum number of pairwise adjacent vertices in G). A graph G is perfect provided that for every induced subgraph H of G, χ(H) = ω(H). This thesis addresses several problems from the theory of perfect graphs and generalizations of perfect graphs. The bull is a five-vertex graph consisting of a triangle and two vertex-disjoint pendant edges; a graph is said to be bull-free provided that no induced subgraph of it is a bull. The first result of this thesis is a structure theorem for bull-free perfect graphs. This is joint work with Chudnovsky, and it first appeared in [12]. The second result of this thesis is a decomposition theorem for bull-free perfect graphs, which we then use to give a polynomial time combinatorial coloring algorithm for bull-free perfect graphs. We remark that de Figueiredo and Maffray [33] previously solved this same problem, however, the algorithm presented in this thesis is faster than the algorithm from [33]. We note that a decomposition theorem that is very similar (but slightly weaker) than the one from this thesis was originally proven in [52], however, the proof in this thesis is significantly different from the one in [52]. The algorithm from this thesis is very similar to the one from [52]. A class G of graphs is said to be χ-bounded provided that there exists a function f such that for all G in G, and all induced subgraphs H of G, we have that χ(H) ≤ f(ω(H)). χ-bounded classes were introduced by Gyarfas [41] as a generalization of the class of perfect graphs (clearly, the class of perfect graphs is χ-bounded by the identity function). Given a graph H, we denote by Forb*(H) the class of all graphs that do not contain any subdivision of H as an induced subgraph. In [57], Scott proved that Forb*(T) is χ-bounded for every tree T, and he conjectured that Forb*(H) is χ-bounded for every graph H. Recently, a group of authors constructed a counterexample to Scott's conjecture [51]. This raises the following question: for which graphs H is Scott's conjecture true? In this thesis, we present the proof of Scott's conjecture for the cases when H is the paw (i.e. a four-vertex graph consisting of a triangle and a pendant edge), the bull, and a necklace (i.e. a graph obtained from a path by choosing a matching such that no edge of the matching is incident with an endpoint of the path, and for each edge of the matching, adding a vertex adjacent to the ends of this edge). This is joint work with Chudnovsky, Scott, and Trotignon, and it originally appeared in [13]. Finally, we consider several operations (namely, "substitution," "gluing along a clique," and "gluing along a bounded number of vertices"), and we show that the closure of a χ-bounded class under any one of them, as well as under certain combinations of these three operations (in particular, the combination of substitution and gluing along a clique, as well as the combination of gluing along a clique and gluing along a bounded number of vertices) is again χ-bounded. This is joint work with Chudnovsky, Scott, and Trotignon, and it originally appeared in [14]

Incompressibility of H-free edge modification problems: Towards a dichotomy

Given a graph G and an integer k, the H-free Edge Editing problem is to find whether there exist at most k pairs of vertices in G such that changing the adjacency of the pairs in G results in a graph without any induced copy of H. Nontrivial polynomial kernels are known to exist for some graphs H with at most 4 vertices, but starting from 5 vertices, polynomial kernels are known only if H is either complete or empty. This suggests the conjecture that there is no other H with at least 5 vertices where H-free Edge Editing admits a polynomial kernel. Towards this goal, we obtain a set of nine 5-vertex graphs such that if for every , H-free Edge Editing is incompressible and the complexity assumption holds, then H-free Edge Editing is incompressible for every graph H with at least five vertices that is neither complete nor empty. We obtain similar results also for H-free Edge Deletion/Completion