English

Linear clique-width and modular decomposition

Combinatorics 2026-02-26 v1

Abstract

A hereditary class of graphs has bounded clique-width if and only if its prime members do, but this lifting property fails for linear clique-width. We prove that a hereditary class has bounded linear clique-width if and only if its prime members do and it contains neither all quasi-threshold graphs nor all complements of quasi-threshold graphs. This generalizes a result of Brignall, Korpelainen, and Vatter, who established the result for cographs.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.22089,
  title  = {Linear clique-width and modular decomposition},
  author = {Robert Brignall and Michal Opler and Vincent Vatter},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.22089},
  year   = {2026}
}