On strongly chordal graphs that are not leaf powers

A common task in phylogenetics is to find an evolutionary tree representing proximity relationships between species. This motivates the notion of leaf powers: a graph G = (V, E) is a leaf power if there exist a tree T on leafset V and a threshold k such that uv is an edge if and only if the distance between u and v in T is at most k. Characterizing leaf powers is a challenging open problem, along with determining the complexity of their recognition. This is in part due to the fact that few graphs are known to not be leaf powers, as such graphs are difficult to construct. Recently, Nevries and Rosenke asked if leaf powers could be characterized by strong chordality and a finite set of forbidden subgraphs. In this paper, we provide a negative answer to this question, by exhibiting an infinite family \G of (minimal) strongly chordal graphs that are not leaf powers. During the process, we establish a connection between leaf powers, alternating cycles and quartet compatibility. We also show that deciding if a chordal graph is \G-free is NP-complete, which may provide insight on the complexity of the leaf power recognition problem

Relating threshold tolerance graphs to other graph classes

A graph G=(V, E) is a threshold tolerance if it is possible to associate weights and tolerances with each node of G so that two nodes are adjacent exactly when the sum of their weights exceeds either one of their tolerances. Threshold tolerance graphs are a special case of the well-known class of tolerance graphs and generalize the class of threshold graphs which are also extensively studied in literature. In this note we relate the threshold tolerance graphs with other important graph classes. In particular we show that threshold tolerance graphs are a proper subclass of co-strongly chordal graphs and strictly include the class of co-interval graphs. To this purpose, we exploit the relation with another graph class, min leaf power graphs (mLPGs)

Strongly simplicial vertices of powers of trees

AbstractFor a tree T and an integer k⩾1, it is well known that the kth power Tk of T is strongly chordal and hence has a strong elimination ordering of its vertices. In this note we obtain a complete characterization of strongly simplicial vertices of Tk, thereby characterizing all strong elimination orderings of the vertices of Tk

The square of a block graph

AbstractThe square H2 of a graph H is obtained from H by adding new edges between every two vertices having distance two in H. A block graph is one in which every block is a clique. For the first time, good characterizations and a linear time recognition of squares of block graphs are given in this paper. Our results generalize several previous known results on squares of trees