On some special classes of contact B0B_0-VPG graphs

A graph $G$ is a $B_0$-VPG graph if one can associate a path on a rectangular grid with each vertex such that two vertices are adjacent if and only if the corresponding paths intersect at at least one grid-point. A graph $G$ is a contact $B_0$-VPG graph if it is a $B_0$-VPG graph admitting a representation with no two paths crossing and no two paths sharing an edge of the grid. In this paper, we present a minimal forbidden induced subgraph characterisation of contact $B_0$-VPG graphs within four special graph classes: chordal graphs, tree-cographs, $P_4$-tidy graphs and $P_5$-free graphs. Moreover, we present a polynomial-time algorithm for recognising chordal contact $B_0$-VPG graphs.Comment: 34 pages, 15 figure

FPT algorithms to recognize well covered graphs

Given a graph $G$, let $vc(G)$ and $vc^+(G)$ be the sizes of a minimum and a maximum minimal vertex covers of $G$, respectively. We say that $G$ is well covered if $vc(G)=vc^+(G)$ (that is, all minimal vertex covers have the same size). Determining if a graph is well covered is a coNP-complete problem. In this paper, we obtain $O^*(2^{vc})$-time and $O^*(1.4656^{vc^+})$-time algorithms to decide well coveredness, improving results of Boria et. al. (2015). Moreover, using crown decomposition, we show that such problems admit kernels having linear number of vertices. In 2018, Alves et. al. (2018) proved that recognizing well covered graphs is coW[2]-hard when the independence number $\alpha(G)=n-vc(G)$ is the parameter. Contrasting with such coW[2]-hardness, we present an FPT algorithm to decide well coveredness when $\alpha(G)$ and the degeneracy of the input graph $G$ are aggregate parameters. Finally, we use the primeval decomposition technique to obtain a linear time algorithm for extended $P_4$-laden graphs and $(q,q-4)$-graphs, which is FPT parameterized by $q$, improving results of Klein et al (2013).Comment: 15 pages, 2 figure

Characterizing 2-crossing-critical graphs

It is very well-known that there are precisely two minimal non-planar graphs: $K_5$ and $K_{3,3}$ (degree 2 vertices being irrelevant in this context). In the language of crossing numbers, these are the only 1-crossing-critical graphs: they each have crossing number at least one, and every proper subgraph has crossing number less than one. In 1987, Kochol exhibited an infinite family of 3-connected, simple 2-crossing-critical graphs. In this work, we: (i) determine all the 3-connected 2-crossing-critical graphs that contain a subdivision of the M\"obius Ladder $V_{10}$; (ii) show how to obtain all the not 3-connected 2-crossing-critical graphs from the 3-connected ones; (iii) show that there are only finitely many 3-connected 2-crossing-critical graphs not containing a subdivision of $V_{10}$; and (iv) determine all the 3-connected 2-crossing-critical graphs that do not contain a subdivision of $V_{8}$.Comment: 176 pages, 28 figure