Edge Clique Cover of Claw-free Graphs

The smallest number of cliques, covering all edges of a graph $G$, is called the (edge) clique cover number of $G$ and is denoted by $cc(G)$. It is an easy observation that for every line graph $G$ with $n$ vertices, $cc(G)\leq n$. G. Chen et al. [Discrete Math. 219 (2000), no. 1--3, 17--26; MR1761707] extended this observation to all quasi-line graphs and questioned if the same assertion holds for all claw-free graphs. In this paper, using the celebrated structure theorem of claw-free graphs due to Chudnovsky and Seymour, we give an affirmative answer to this question for all claw-free graphs with independence number at least three. In particular, we prove that if $G$ is a connected claw-free graph on $n$ vertices with $\alpha(G)\geq 3$, then $cc(G)\leq n$ and equality holds if and only if $G$ is either the graph of icosahedron, or the complement of a graph on $10$ vertices called twister or the $p^{th}$ power of the cycle $C_n$, for $1\leq p \leq \lfloor (n-1)/3\rfloor$.