A _theta_ is a graph consisting of two non-adjacent vertices and three internally disjoint paths between them, each of length at least two. For a family $$\mathcal{H}$$ of graphs, we say a graph $$G$$ is $$\mathcal{H}$$-_free_ if no induced subgraph of $$G$$ is isomorphic to a member of $$\mathcal{H}$$. We prove a conjecture of Sintiari and Trotignon, that there exists an absolute constant $$c$$ for which every (theta, triangle)-free graph $$G$$ has treewidth at most $$c\log (|V(G)|)$$. A construction by Sintiari and Trotignon shows that this bound is asymptotically best possible, and (theta, triangle)-free graphs comprise the first known hereditary class of graphs with arbitrarily large yet logarithmic treewidth.Our main result is in fact a generalization of the above conjecture, that treewidth is at most logarithmic in $|V(G)|$ for every graph $$G$$ excluding the so-called _three-path-configurations_ as well as a fixed complete graph. It follows that several NP-hard problems such as Stable Set, Vertex Cover, Dominating Set and $$k$$-Coloring (for fixed $$k$$) admit polynomial time algorithms in graphs excluding the three-path-configurations and a fixed complete graph.
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Complexity of Ck-Coloring in Hereditary Classes of Graphs
For a graph F, a graph G is F-free if it does not contain an induced subgraph isomorphic to F. For two graphs G and H, an H-coloring of G is a mapping f : V (G) → V (H) such that for every edge uv ∈ E(G) it holds that f(u)f(v) ∈ E(H). We are interested in the complexity of the problem H-Coloring, which asks for the existence of an H-coloring of an input graph G. In particular, we consider H-Coloring of F-free graphs, where F is a fixed graph and H is an odd cycle of length at least 5. This problem is closely related to the well known open problem of determining the complexity of 3-Coloring of Pt-free graphs. We show that for every odd k ≥ 5 the Ck-Coloring problem, even in the precoloring-extension variant, can be solved in polynomial time in P9-free graphs. On the other hand, we prove that the extension version of Ck-Coloring is NP-complete for F-free graphs whenever some component of F is not a subgraph of a subdivided claw.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1763817
- PAR ID:
- 10164201
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- European Symposium on Algorithms
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 31:1 - 31:15
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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