English

Bounding the Mim-Width of Hereditary Graph Classes

Data Structures and Algorithms 2021-08-27 v3 Computational Complexity Discrete Mathematics Combinatorics

Abstract

A large number of NP-hard graph problems become polynomial-time solvable on graph classes where the mim-width is bounded and quickly computable. Hence, when solving such problems on special graph classes, it is helpful to know whether the graph class under consideration has bounded mim-width. We first extend the toolkit for proving (un)boundedness of mim-width of graph classes. This enables us to initiate a systematic study into bounding mim-width from the perspective of hereditary graph classes. For a given graph HH, the class of HH-free graphs has bounded mim-width if and only if it has bounded clique-width. We show that the same is not true for (H1,H2)(H_1,H_2)-free graphs. We find several general classes of (H1,H2)(H_1,H_2)-free graphs having unbounded clique-width, but the mim-width is bounded and quickly computable. We also prove a number of new results showing that, for certain H1H_1 and H2H_2, the class of (H1,H2)(H_1,H_2)-free graphs has unbounded mim-width. Combining these with known results, we present summary theorems of the current state of the art for the boundedness of mim-width for (H1,H2)(H_1,H_2)-free graphs.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2004.05018,
  title  = {Bounding the Mim-Width of Hereditary Graph Classes},
  author = {Nick Brettell and Jake Horsfield and Andrea Munaro and Giacomo Paesani and Daniel Paulusma},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.05018},
  year   = {2021}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T14:46:51.295Z