English

Partitions and covers in $\Delta$ convexity

Combinatorics 2026-04-23 v2

Abstract

Given a graph GG and a set SV(G)S \subseteq V(G), we say that SS is Δ\Delta-convex if the neighborhood of every vertex not in SS is an independent set. A collection V=(V1,V2,,Vp){\cal V} = (V_1, V_2, \ldots , V_p) of convex sets of GG is a convex pp-cover if V(G)=1ipViV(G) = \underset{1 \leq i \leq p}{\bigcup} V_i and Vi1jp,jiVjV_i \nsubseteq {\underset{1 \leq j \leq p, j\ne i}{\bigcup}} V_j for i{1,,p}i \in \{1, \ldots, p\}. If the convex sets of V{\cal V} are pairwise disjoint, V{\cal V} is a convex pp-partition of V(G)V(G). The convex cover number ϕc(G)\phi_c(G) (the convex partition number Θc(G)\Theta_c(G)) of a graph GG is the least integer p2p \geq 2 for which GG has a convex pp-cover (convex pp-partition). In this work, we prove that the {\sc Convex p-cover} and {\sc Convex p-Partition} problems are \NP-complete for any fixed p4p \ge 4 in Δ\Delta-convexity. Furthermore, for the three standard graph products, namely, the Cartesian, strong and lexicographic products, we determine these parameters for some cases and present bounds for others.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2501.16960,
  title  = {Partitions and covers in $\Delta$ convexity},
  author = {Bijo S. Anand and Manoj Changat and Mitre C. Dourado and Prasanth G. Narasimha-Shenoi and Sabeer S. Ramla},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.16960},
  year   = {2026}
}