English

Characterizing simplex graphs

Combinatorics 2025-03-24 v1

Abstract

The simplex graph S(G)S(G) of a graph GG is defined as the graph whose vertices are the cliques of GG (including the empty set), with two vertices being adjacent if, as cliques of GG, they differ in exactly one vertex. Simplex graphs form a subclass of median graphs and include many well-known families of graphs, such as gear graphs, Fibonacci cubes and Lucas cubes. In this paper, we characterize simplex graphs from four different perspectives: the first focuses on a graph class associated with downwards-closed sets -- namely, the daisy cubes; the second identifies all forbidden partial cube-minors of simplex graphs; the third is from the perspective of the Θ\Theta equivalent classes; and the fourth explores the relationship between the maximum degree and the isometric dimension. Furthermore, very recently, Betre et al.\ [K. H. Betre, Y. X. Zhang, C. Edmond, Pure simplicial and clique complexes with a fixed number of facets, 2024, arXiv: 2411.12945v1] proved that an abstract simplicial complex (i.e., an independence system) of a finite set can be represented to a clique complex of a graph if and only if it satisfies the Weak Median Property. As a corollary, we rederive this result by using the graph-theoretical method.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2503.17160,
  title  = {Characterizing simplex graphs},
  author = {Yan-Ting Xie and Shou-Jun Xu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.17160},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

12 pages, 4 figures