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Boxicity of Series Parallel Graphs

Combinatorics 2007-05-23 v1

Abstract

The three well-known graph classes, planar graphs (P), series-parallel graphs(SP) and outer planar graphs(OP) satisfy the following proper inclusion relation: OP C SP C P. It is known that box(G) <= 3 if G belongs to P and box(G) <= 2 if G belongs to OP. Thus it is interesting to decide whether the maximum possible value of the boxicity of series-parallel graphs is 2 or 3. In this paper we construct a series-parallel graph with boxicity 3, thus resolving this question. Recently Chandran and Sivadasan showed that for any G, box(G) <= treewidth(G)+2. They conjecture that for any k, there exists a k-tree with boxicity k+1. (This would show that their upper bound is tight but for an additive factor of 1, since the treewidth of any k-tree equals k.) The series-parallel graph we construct in this paper is a 2-tree with boxicity 3 and is thus a first step towards proving their conjecture.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0509581,
  title  = {Boxicity of Series Parallel Graphs},
  author = {Ankur Bohra and L. Sunil Chandran and J. Krishnam Raju},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0509581},
  year   = {2007}
}

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10 pages, 0 figures