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Lettericity is a graph parameter responsible for many attractive structural properties. In particular, graphs of bounded lettericity have bounded linear clique-width and they are well-quasi-ordered by induced subgraphs. The latter property implies that any hereditary class of graphs of bounded lettericity can be described by finitely many forbidden induced subgraphs. This, in turn, implies, in a non-constructive way, polynomial-time recognition of such classes. However, no constructive algorithms and no specific bounds on the size of forbidden graphs are available up to date. In the present paper, we develop an algorithm that recognizes $n$-vertex graphs of lettericity at most $k$ in time $f(k)n^3$ and show that any minimal graph of lettericity more than $k$ has at most $2^{O(k^2\log k)}$ vertices., Comment: 16pages + 3pages appendix. Submitted to a journal

Unlike minors, the induced subgraph obstructions to bounded treewidth come in a large variety, including, for every $t\geq 1$, the $t$-basic obstructions: the graphs $K_{t+1}$ and $K_{t,t}$, along with the subdivisions of the $t$-by-$t$ wall and their line graphs. But this list is far from complete. The simplest example of a ''non-basic'' obstruction is due to Pohoata and Davies (independently). For every $n \geq 1$, they construct certain graphs of treewidth $n$ and with no $3$-basic obstruction as an induced subgraph, which we call $n$-arrays. Let us say a graph class $\mathcal{G}$ is clean if the only obstructions to bounded treewidth in $\mathcal{G}$ are in fact the basic ones. It follows that a full description of the induced subgraph obstructions to bounded treewidth is equivalent to a characterization of all families $\mathcal{H}$ of graphs for which the class of all $\mathcal{H}$-free graphs is clean (a graph $G$ is $\mathcal{H}$-free if no induced subgraph of $G$ is isomorphic to any graph in $\mathcal{H}$). This remains elusive, but there is an immediate necessary condition: if $\mathcal{H}$-free graphs are clean, then there are only finitely many integers $n\geq 1$ such that there is an $n$-array which is $\mathcal{H}$-free. The above necessary condition is not sufficient in general. However, the situation turns out to be different if $\mathcal{H}$ is finite: we prove that for every finite set $\mathcal{H}$ of graphs, the class of all $\mathcal{H}$-free graphs is clean if and only if there is no $\mathcal{H}$-free $n$-array except possibly for finitely many values of $n$.

Given an integer $c\geq 1$, we say a graph $G$ is $c$-pinched if $G$ does not contain an induced subgraph consisting of $c$ cycles, all going through a single common vertex and otherwise pairwise disjoint and with no edges between them. What can be said about the structure of $c$-pinched graphs? For instance, $1$-pinched graphs are exactly graphs of treewidth $1$. However, bounded treewidth for $c>1$ is immediately seen to be a false hope because complete graphs, complete bipartite graphs, subdivided walls and line-graphs of subdivided walls are all examples of $2$-pinched graphs with arbitrarily large treewidth. There is even a fifth obstruction for larger values of $c$, discovered by Pohoata and later independently by Davies, consisting of $3$-pinched graphs with unbounded treewidth and no large induced subgraph isomorphic to any of the first four obstructions. We fuse the above five examples into a grid-type theorem fully describing the unavoidable induced subgraphs of pinched graphs with large treewidth. More precisely, we prove that for every integer $c\geq 1$, a $c$-pinched graph $G$ has large treewidth if and only if $G$ contains one of the following as an induced subgraph: a large complete graph, a large complete bipartite graph, a subdivision of a large wall, the line-graph of a subdivision of a large wall, or a large graph from the Pohoata-Davies construction. Our main result also generalizes to an extension of pinched graphs where the lengths of excluded cycles are lower-bounded., Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2305.15615

Treewidth is a fundamental graph parameter that quantifies the complexity of graphs by measuring their "thickness" compared to a tree. In 1986, Robertson and Seymour proved that the only way a graph may have large treewidth is by containing a large hexagonal grid as a minor, or equivalently, as a (subdivided) subgraph. Which induced subgraphs prevent a graph from having small treewidth? Along with complete graphs, there are three other "basic" obstructions that should appear in the answer. But the full list remains beyond the reach of current methods, and "even holes" seem to be the crux of this matter. The reason lies in the observation that even holes are the only (non-trivial) induced subgraphs that all basic obstructions except for complete graphs have in common, and yet graphs with no even hole and no $4$-vertex complete subgraph fail to have bounded treewidth. The only known example of (even-hole, $K_4$)-free graphs of unbounded treewidth, called "layered wheels", is due to Sintiari and Trotignon. While rather complicated in global structure, layered wheels are unexpectedly sparse from a local perspective: for every $h\geq 1$, there are layered wheels of arbitrarily large treewidth in which every induced subgraph on at most $h$ vertices is chordal. The converse is also true, that every $K_4$-free chordal graph $H$ appears as an induced subgraph in every layered wheel of sufficiently large treewidth. It turns out, despite their technically involved construction, that layered wheels are in fact quite canonical: our main result shows that the local structure of layered wheels is realized in every (even-hole, $K_4$)-free graph of large treewidth. More precisely, we prove that for a graph $H$, every (even-hole, $K_4$)-free graph of large enough treewidth contains an induced subgraph isomorphic to $H$, if and only if $H$ is a $K_4$-free chordal graph.

A generalized $t$-pyramid is a graph obtained from a certain kind of tree (a subdivided star or a subdivided cubic caterpillar) and the line graph of a subdivided cubic caterpillar by identifying simplicial vertices. We prove that for every integer $t$ there exists a constant $c(t)$ such that every $n$-vertex even-hole-free graph with no clique of size $t$ and no induced subgraph isomorphic to a generalized $t$-pyramid has treewidth at most $c(t)\log{n}$. This settles a special case of a conjecture of Sintiari and Trotignon; this bound is also best possible for the class. It follows that several \textsf{NP}-hard problems such as \textsc{Stable Set}, \textsc{Vertex Cover}, \textsc{Dominating Set} and \textsc{Coloring} admit polynomial-time algorithms on this class of graphs. Results from this paper are also used in later papers of the series, in particular to solve the full version of the Sintiari-Trotignon conjecture.

The tree-independence number tree-$\alpha$, first defined and studied by Dallard, Milani\v{c} and \v{S}torgel, is a variant of treewidth tailored to solving the maximum independent set problem. Over a series of papers, Abrishami et al. developed the so-called central bag method to study induced obstructions to bounded treewidth. Among others, they showed that, in a certain superclass $\mathcal C$ of (even hole, diamond, pyramid)-free graphs, treewidth is bounded by a function of the clique number. In this paper, we relax the bounded clique number assumption, and show that $\mathcal C$ has bounded tree-$\alpha$. Via existing results, this yields a polynomial time algorithm for the maximum independent set problem in this class. Our result also corroborates, for this class of graphs, a conjecture of Dallard, Milani\v{c} and \v{S}torgel that in a hereditary graph class, tree-$\alpha$ is bounded if and only if the treewidth is bounded by a function of the clique number., Comment: 17 pages. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2203.06775

The celebrated Erd\H{o}s-P\'{o}sa Theorem, in one formulation, asserts that for every $c\geq 1$, graphs with no subgraph (or equivalently, minor) isomorphic to the disjoint union of $c$ cycles have bounded treewidth. What can we say about the treewidth of graphs containing no induced subgraph isomorphic to the disjoint union of $c$ cycles? Let us call these graphs $c$-perforated. While $1$-perforated graphs have treewidth one, complete graphs and complete bipartite graphs are examples of $2$-perforated graphs with arbitrarily large treewidth. But there are sparse examples, too: Bonamy, Bonnet, D\'{e}pr\'{e}s, Esperet, Geniet, Hilaire, Thomass\'{e} and Wesolek constructed $2$-perforated graphs with arbitrarily large treewidth and no induced subgraph isomorphic to $K_3$ or $K_{3,3}$; we call these graphs occultations. Indeed, it turns out that a mild (and inevitable) adjustment of occultations provides examples of $2$-perforated graphs with arbitrarily large treewidth and arbitrarily large girth, which we refer to as full occultations. Our main result shows that the converse also holds: for every $c\geq 1$, a $c$-perforated graph has large treewidth if and only if it contains, as an induced subgraph, either a large complete graph, or a large complete bipartite graph, or a large full occultation. This distinguishes $c$-perforated graphs, among graph classes purely defined by forbidden induced subgraphs, as the first to admit a grid-type theorem incorporating obstructions other than subdivided walls and their line graphs. More generally, for all $c,o\geq 1$, we establish a full characterization of induced subgraph obstructions to bounded treewidth in graphs containing no induced subgraph isomorphic to the disjoint union of $c$ cycles, each of length at least $o+2$.

How to efficiently represent a graph in computer memory is a fundamental data structuring question. In the present paper, we address this question from a combinatorial point of view. A representation of an $n$-vertex graph $G$ is called implicit if it assigns to each vertex of $G$ a binary code of length $O(\log n)$ so that the adjacency of two vertices is a function of their codes. A necessary condition for a hereditary class $X$ of graphs to admit an implicit representation is that $X$ has at most factorial speed of growth. This condition, however, is not sufficient, as was recently shown in [Hatami & Hatami, FOCS 2022]. Several sufficient conditions for the existence of implicit representations deal with boundedness of some parameters, such as degeneracy or clique-width. In the present paper, we analyze more graph parameters and prove a number of new results related to implicit representation and factorial properties.

Given a graph $H$, we prove that every (theta, prism)-free graph of sufficiently large treewidth contains either a large clique or an induced subgraph isomorphic to $H$, if and only if $H$ is a forest.

We say a class $\mathcal{C}$ of graphs is clean if for every positive integer $t$ there exists a positive integer $w(t)$ such that every graph in $\mathcal{C}$ with treewidth more than $w(t)$ contains an induced subgraph isomorphic to one of the following: the complete graph $K_t$, the complete bipartite graph $K_{t,t}$, a subdivision of the $(t\times t)$-wall or the line graph of a subdivision of the $(t \times t)$-wall. In this paper, we adapt a method due to Lozin and Razgon (building on earlier ideas of Wei{\ss}auer) to prove that the class of all $H$-free graphs (that is, graphs with no induced subgraph isomorphic to a fixed graph $H$) is clean if and only if $H$ is a forest whose components are subdivided stars. Their method is readily applied to yield the above characterization. However, our main result is much stronger: for every forest $H$ as above, we show that forbidding certain connected graphs containing $H$ as an induced subgraph (rather than $H$ itself) is enough to obtain a clean class of graphs. Along the proof of the latter strengthening, we build on a result of Davies and produce, for every positive integer $\eta$, a complete description of unavoidable connected induced subgraphs of a connected graph $G$ containing $\eta$ vertices from a suitably large given set of vertices in $G$. This is of independent interest, and will be used in subsequent papers in this series., Comment: Accepted manuscript; see DOI for journal version

What are the unavoidable induced subgraphs of graphs with large treewidth? It is well-known that the answer must include a complete graph, a complete bipartite graph, all subdivisions of a wall and line graphs of all subdivisions of a wall (we refer to these graphs as the "basic treewidth obstructions"). So it is natural to ask whether graphs excluding the basic treewidth obstructions as induced subgraphs have bounded treewidth. Sintiari and Trotignon answered this question in the negative. Their counterexamples, the so-called "layered wheels," contain wheels, where a wheel consists of a hole (i.e., an induced cycle of length at least four) along with a vertex with at least three neighbors in the hole. This leads one to ask whether graphs excluding wheels and the basic treewidth obstructions as induced subgraphs have bounded treewidth. This also turns out to be false due to Davies' recent example of graphs with large treewidth, no wheels and and no basic treewidth obstructions as induced subgraphs. However, in Davies' example there exist holes and vertices (outside of the hole) with two neighbors in them. Here we prove that a hole with a vertex with at least two neighbors in it is inevitable in graphs with large treewidth and no basic obstruction. Our main result is that graphs in which every vertex has at most one neighbor in every hole (that does not contain it) and with the basic treewidth obstructions excluded as induced subgraphs have bounded treewidth.

Aboulker, Adler, Kim, Sintiari, and Trotignon conjectured that every graph with bounded maximum degree and large treewidth must contain, as an induced subgraph, a large subdivided wall, or the line graph of a large subdivided wall. This conjecture was recently proved by Korhonen, but the problem of identifying the obstacles to bounded treewidth in the general case (that is, without the bounded maximum degree condition) remains wide open. Examples of structures of large treewidth which avoid the "usual suspects" have been constructed by Sintiari and Trotignon, and by Davies. In this note, we aim to better isolate the features of these examples that lead to large treewidth. To this end, we prove the following result. Let $G$ be a graph, and write $\gamma(G)$ for the size of a largest connected component in the graph induced by $G$ on the set of vertices of degree at least 3. If $\gamma(G)$ is small and the treewidth of $G$ is large, then $G$ must contain a large subdivided wall or the line graph of a large subdivided wall. This result is the best possible, in the sense that the conclusion fails if we replace 3 by any larger number in the definition of $\gamma(G)$, as evidenced by Davies' example., Comment: We found a much quicker way of proving our result using Korhonen's result from arXiv:2203.13233. We have included our new proof as part of the new "Induced subgraphs and tree decompositions V. One neighbor in a hole." That new manuscript is available at arXiv:2205.04420. The main result from the withdrawn manuscript is Theorem 7.1 in the new manuscript

Given two $n$-vertex graphs $G_1$ and $G_2$ of bounded treewidth, is there an $n$-vertex graph $G$ of bounded treewidth having subgraphs isomorphic to $G_1$ and $G_2$? Our main result is a negative answer to this question, in a strong sense: we show that the answer is no even if $G_1$ is a binary tree and $G_2$ is a ternary tree. We also provide an extensive study of cases where such `gluing' is possible. In particular, we prove that if $G_1$ has treewidth $k$ and $G_2$ has pathwidth $\ell$, then there is an $n$-vertex graph of treewidth at most $k + 3 \ell + 1$ containing both $G_1$ and $G_2$ as subgraphs.

We uncover a connection between two seemingly unrelated notions: lettericity, from structural graph theory, and geometric griddability, from the world of permutation patterns. Both of these notions capture important structural properties of their respective classes of objects. We prove that these notions are equivalent in the sense that a permutation class is geometrically griddable if and only if the corresponding class of inversion graphs has bounded lettericity.

Lettericity is a graph parameter introduced by Petkov\v{s}ek in 2002 in order to study well-quasi-orderability under the induced subgraph relation. In the world of permutations, geometric griddability was independently introduced in 2013 by Albert, Atkinson, Bouvel, Ru\v{s}kuc and Vatter, partly as an enumerative tool. Despite their independent origins, those two notions share a connection: they highlight very similar structural features in their respective objects. The fact that those structural features arose separately on two different occasions makes them very interesting to study in their own right. In the present paper, we explore the notion of lettericity through the lens of "minimal obstructions", i.e., minimal classes of graphs of unbounded lettericity, and identify an infinite collection of such classes. We also discover an intriguing structural hierarchy that arises in the study of lettericity and that of griddability.

The class of quasi-chain graphs is an extension of the well-studied class of chain graphs. This latter class enjoys many nice and important properties, such as bounded clique-width, implicit representation, well-quasi-ordering by induced subgraphs, etc. The class of quasi-chain graphs is substantially more complex. In particular, this class is not well-quasi-ordered by induced subgraphs, and the clique-width is not bounded in it. In the present paper, we show that the universe of quasi-chain graphs is at least as complex as the universe of permutations by establishing a bijection between the class of all permutations and a subclass of quasi-chain graphs. This implies, in particular, that the induced subgraph isomorphism problem is NP-complete for quasi-chain graphs. On the other hand, we propose a decomposition theorem for quasi-chain graphs that implies an implicit representation for graphs in this class and efficient solutions for some algorithmic problems that are generally intractable., Comment: 23 pages

The class of bipartite permutation graphs enjoys many nice and important properties. In particular, this class is critically important in the study of clique- and rank-width of graphs, because it is one of the minimal hereditary classes of graphs of unbounded clique- and rank-width. It also contains a number of important subclasses, which are critical with respect to other parameters, such as graph lettericity or shrub-depth, and with respect to other notions, such as well-quasi-ordering or complexity of algorithmic problems. In the present paper we identify critical subclasses of bipartite permutation graphs of various types.

The Ramsey number $R_X(p,q)$ for a class of graphs $X$ is the minimum $n$ such that every graph in $X$ with at least $n$ vertices has either a clique of size $p$ or an independent set of size $q$. We say that Ramsey numbers are linear in $X$ if there is a constant $k$ such that $R_{X}(p,q) \leq k(p+q)$ for all $p,q$. In the present paper we conjecture that if $X$ is a hereditary class defined by finitely many forbidden induced subgraphs, then Ramsey numbers are linear in $X$ if and only if $X$ excludes a forest, a disjoint union of cliques and their complements. We prove the "only if" part of this conjecture and verify the "if" part for a variety of classes. We also apply the notion of linearity to bipartite Ramsey numbers and reveal a number of similarities and differences between the bipartite and non-bipartite case., Comment: 24 pages

Let $G=(V,E)$ be a graph and $A$ its adjacency matrix. We say that a vertex $y \in V$ is a function of vertices $x_1, \ldots, x_k \in V$ if there exists a Boolean function $f$ of $k$ variables such that for any vertex $z \in V - \{y, x_1, \ldots, x_k\}$, $A(y,z)=f(A(x_1,z),\ldots,A(x_k,z))$. The functionality $fun(y)$ of vertex $y$ is the minimum $k$ such that $y$ is a function of $k$ vertices. The functionality $fun(G)$ of the graph $G$ is $\max\limits_H\min\limits_{y\in V(H)}fun(y)$, where the maximum is taken over all induced subgraphs $H$ of $G$. In the present paper, we show that functionality generalizes simultaneously several other graph parameters, such as degeneracy or clique-width, by proving that bounded degeneracy or bounded clique-width imply bounded functionality. Moreover, we show that this generalization is proper by revealing classes of graphs of unbounded degeneracy and clique-width, where functionality is bounded by a constant. This includes permutation graphs, unit interval graphs and line graphs. We also observe that bounded functionality implies bounded VC-dimension, i.e. graphs of bounded VC-dimension extend graphs of bounded functionality, and this extension is also proper.

In this paper, we reveal an intriguing relationship between two seemingly unrelated notions: letter graphs and geometric grid classes of permutations. An important property common for both of them is well-quasi-orderability, implying, in a non-constructive way, a polynomial-time recognition of geometric grid classes of permutations and $k$-letter graphs for a fixed $k$. However, constructive algorithms are available only for $k=2$. In this paper, we present the first constructive polynomial-time algorithm for the recognition of $3$-letter graphs. It is based on a structural characterization of graphs in this class., Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1108.6319 by other authors