On the Treewidth of Token and Johnson Graphs

Abstract

Let $G$ be a graph on $n$ vertices and $1 \le k \le n$ a fixed integer. The $k$-token graph of $G$ is the graph, $F_k(G)$, whose vertex set is equal to all the $k$-subsets of $V(G)$; where two of them are adjacent whenever their symmetric difference is an edge of $G$. In this paper we study the treewidth of $F_k(G)$, when $G$ is a star, path or a complete graph. We show that in the first two cases, the treewidth is of order $\Theta(n^{k-1})$, and of order $\Theta(n^k)$ in the third case. We conjecture that our upper bound for the treewidth of $F_k(K_n)$ is tight. This is particularly relevant since $F_k(K_n)$ is isomorphic to the well known Johnson graph $J(n,k)$