Well-quasi-ordering and finite distinguishing number

Balogh, Bollobás and Weinreich showed that a parameter that has since been termed the distinguishing number can be used to identify a jump in the possible speeds of hereditary classes of graphs at the sequence of Bell numbers. We prove that every hereditary class that lies above the Bell numbers and has finite distinguishing number contains a boundary class for well‐quasi‐ordering. This means that any such hereditary class which in addition is defined by finitely many minimal forbidden induced subgraphs must contain an infinite antichain. As all hereditary classes below the Bell numbers are well‐quasi‐ordered, our results complete the answer to the question of well‐quasi‐ordering for hereditary classes with finite distinguishing number. We also show that the decision procedure of Atminas, Collins, Foniok and Lozin to decide the Bell number (and which now also decides well‐quasi‐ordering for classes of finite distinguishing number) has runtime bounded by an explicit (quadruple exponential) function of the order of the largest minimal forbidden induced subgraph of the class

Universal graphs and universal permutations

Let $X$ be a family of graphs and $X_n$ the set of $n$-vertex graphs in $X$. A graph $U^{(n)}$ containing all graphs from $X_n$ as induced subgraphs is called $n$-universal for $X$. Moreover, we say that $U^{(n)}$ is a proper $n$-universal graph for $X$ if it belongs to $X$. In the present paper, we construct a proper $n$-universal graph for the class of split permutation graphs. Our solution includes two ingredients: a proper universal 321-avoiding permutation and a bijection between 321-avoiding permutations and symmetric split permutation graphs. The $n$-universal split permutation graph constructed in this paper has $4n^3$ vertices, which means that this construction is order-optimal.Comment: To appear in Discrete Mathematics, Algorithms and Application

On Forbidden Induced Subgraphs for Unit Disk Graphs

A unit disk graph is the intersection graph of disks of equal radii in the plane. The class of unit disk graphs is hereditary, and therefore admits a characterization in terms of minimal forbidden induced subgraphs. In spite of quite active study of unit disk graphs very little is known about minimal forbidden induced subgraphs for this class. We found only finitely many minimal non-unit disk graphs in the literature. In this paper we study in a systematic way forbidden induced subgraphs for the class of unit disk graphs. We develop several structural and geometrical tools, and use them to reveal infinitely many new minimal non-unit disk graphs. Further we use these results to investigate structure of co-bipartite unit disk graphs. In particular, we give structural characterization of those co-bipartite unit disk graphs whose edges between parts form a C4-free bipartite graph, and show that bipartite complements of these graphs are also unit disk graphs. Our results lead us to propose a conjecture that the class of co-bipartite unit disk graphs is closed under bipartite complementation

Graphs without large bicliques and well-quasi-orderability by the induced subgraph relation

Recently, Daligault, Rao and Thomass\'e asked in [3] if every hereditary class which is well-quasi-ordered by the induced subgraph relation is of bounded clique-width. There are two reasons why this questions is interesting. First, it connects two seemingly unrelated notions. Second, if the question is answered affirmatively, this will have a strong algorithmic consequence. In particular, this will mean (through the use of Courcelle theorem [2]), that any problem definable in Monadic Second Order Logic can be solved in a polynomial time on any class well-quasi-ordered by the induced subgraph relation. In the present paper, we answer this question affirmatively for graphs without large bicliques. Thus the above algorithmic consequence is true, for example, for classes of graphs of bounded degree

WQO is decidable for factorial languages

A language is factorial if it is closed under taking factors, i.e. contiguous subwords. Every factorial language can be described by an antidictionary, i.e. a minimal set of forbidden factors. We show that the problem of deciding whether a factorial language given by a finite antidictionary is well-quasi-ordered under the factor containment relation can be solved in polynomial time. We also discuss possible ways to extend our solution to permutations and graphs