We discover new hereditary classes of graphs that are minimal (with respect
to set inclusion) of unbounded clique-width. The new examples include split
permutation graphs and bichain graphs. Each of these classes is characterised
by a finite list of minimal forbidden induced subgraphs. These, therefore,
disprove a conjecture due to Daligault, Rao and Thomasse from 2010 claiming
that all such minimal classes must be defined by infinitely many forbidden
induced subgraphs.
In the same paper, Daligault, Rao and Thomasse make another conjecture that
every hereditary class of unbounded clique-width must contain a labelled
infinite antichain. We show that the two example classes we consider here
satisfy this conjecture. Indeed, they each contain a canonical labelled
infinite antichain, which leads us to propose a stronger conjecture: that every
hereditary class of graphs that is minimal of unbounded clique-width contains a
canonical labelled infinite antichain.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figure