Discussiones Mathematicae Graph Theory 40 (2020) 1163–1173 doi:10.7151/dmgt.2345 GRAPH CLASSES GENERATED BY MYCIELSKIANS Mieczyslaw Borowieckia, Piotr Borowieckib,1 Ewa Drgas-Burchardta and Elzbieta˙ Sidorowicza aInstitute of Mathematics University of Zielona G´ora Prof. Z. Szafrana 4a, 65–516 Zielona G´ora, Poland bFaculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics Gda´nsk University of Technology Narutowicza 11/12, 80-233 Gda´nsk, Poland e-mail: [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Abstract In this paper we use the classical notion of weak Mycielskian M ′(G) ′ ′ ′ of a graph G and the following sequence: M0(G) = G, M1(G) = M (G), ′ ′ ′ and Mn(G) = M Mn−1(G), to show that if G is a complete graph of order p, then the above sequence is a generator of the class of p-colorable graphs. Similarly, using Mycielskian M(G) we show that analogously de- fined sequence is a generator of the class consisting of graphs for which the chromatic number of the subgraph induced by all vertices that belong to at least one triangle is at most p. We also address the problem of characterizing the latter class in terms of forbidden graphs. Keywords: Mycielski graphs, graph coloring, chromatic number. 2010 Mathematics Subject Classification: 05C15, 05C75, 68R10, 05C60. 1. Introduction The notion of the Mycielski graph (also called the Mycielskian of a graph) was introduced in 1955 by Mycielski [17], which led to the famous construction of 1 Partially supported under Ministry of Science and Higher Education (Poland) subsidy for Gda´nsk University od Technology. 1164 M. Borowiecki, P. Borowiecki, E. Drgas-Burchardt and ... triangle-free graphs with arbitrarily large chromatic number. Since then Myciel- ski’s graphs have been the subject of diverse studies. In particular, their prop- erties have been investigated in relation to various coloring problems—vertex as well as edge related invariants have been considered (see, e.g., [4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14, 16]). Other invariants like packing, domination and biclique partition num- bers, not to mention some transformations and generalizations of Mycielskians (see, e.g., [12, 15, 18, 19]), have also attracted much attention. Because of their inherent lack of susceptibility to most coloring algorithms the Mycielski graphs are well-known examples of the so-called benchmark graphs [6]. The Mycielskian of a graph G with the vertex set V = {v1,...,vn} is a graph, denoted by M(G), obtained from G by adding an independent set of ′ ′ ′ ′ ′ vertices V = {v1,...,vn} and joining each vi ∈ V with all neighbors of vi in G, and adding a special vertex x with the edges making it adjacent to all ′ ′ vertices in V . In what follows for vertices vi,vi we say that vi is the parent of ′ vi, which in turn is the child of vi. In a natural way Mycielskians can be used M G M G G M G M G to define a sequence n( ) n≥0 of graphs with 0( ) = , 1( ) = ( ), and Mn(G)= MMn−1(G) for n ≥ 2. Obviously, by definition for every n ≥ 1, it holds that Mn−1(G) is an induced subgraph of Mn(G); in symbols Mn−1(G) ≤ Mn(G). For every Mycielskian in the sequence we say that the graph G is its initial graph. One of the main topics of this paper is the embeddability of graphs in Myciel- skians. We say that a graph H can be embedded in G if there exists an induced subgraph H′ of G such that H′ is isomorphic to H. Along their investigations on the Hall ratio of graphs Cropper et al. [8] gave a positive answer to the question of whether for every triangle-free graph there exists n ≥ 0 such that G can be embedded in Mn(K2). Theorem 1 (Cropper et al. [8]). Every connected triangle-free graph with n vertices is an induced subgraph of Mn(K2). An analogous result for subgraphs of Mn(K2) was proved by Berger et al. [1]. In fact, since every Mn(K2) is triangle-free, Theorem 1 leads to a characterization of the class of graphs that can be embedded in Mn(K2) for some n ≥ 0. In what follows, the class of such graphs and the class of triangle-free graphs is denoted by M(K2) and I1, respectively, so the above characterization can be also written as follows: M(K2)= I1. In this paper we ask about characterizations of classes of graphs that for some n ≥ 0 can be embedded in Mn(Kp) and those embeddable in the so-called weak ′ Mycielskians Mn(Kp), where p ≥ 2 (for the definition of weak Mycielskian see ′ Section 2). The classes of such graphs we denote by M(Kp) and M (Kp), re- spectively. Graph Classes Generated by Mycielskians 1165 ′ We prove that the class of graphs embeddable in Mn(Kp) is exactly the p p M ′ K p class O of -colorable graphs—the sequence n( p) n≥0 is a generator of O . Moreover, we prove that the graphs embeddable in Mn(Kp) constitute the class Bp, i.e., the class of graphs for which the chromatic number of the subgraph induced by all vertices that belong to at least one triangle is at most p—the M K sequence n( p) n≥0 is a generator of Bp. Our main contribution can be roughly summarized as follows: ′ p M (Kp)= O and M(Kp)= Bp. In the last section we address the problem of characterizing the class Bp in terms of forbidden graphs. Our notation on graph classes follows Borowiecki et al. [2]. Any other unex- plained notation is as found in Diestel [9] or West [20]. 2. Preliminaries M G M G X For every Mycielskian n( ) in the sequence n( ) n≥0 by n we denote a subset of V Mn(G) consisting of all special vertices and their ancestors resulting from the recursive definition of Mycielskians. More formally, Xn can be defined ′ as follows: X0 = ∅, X1 = {x1}, and Xn = Xn−1 ∪ Xn−1 ∪ {xn}, where xn is the ′ special vertex of Mn(G) and Xn−1 is the set of the children of vertices in Xn−1, n ≥ 2. In what follows Xn is called the special set of Mn(G). Property 2. If G is a graph and Xn is the special set of Mn(G), then the graph induced by Xn is triangle-free and no vertex in Xn belongs to a triangle in Mn(G). Besides special sets, we will also need the notions of level and generation. Namely, referring to the definition of Mycielskian Mn(G) with the children set ′ ′ V , for n ≥ 1 we say that the vertices in V \ Xn form a set called the n-th level in Mn(G), denoted by Ln(G) (we write Ln for short, and for convenience we assume that L0(G)= V (G)). Naturally, for all k<n by the k-th level of Mn(G) we mean the k-th level of Mk(G). Note that each level is an independent set. The generation of a vertex v of the initial graph G of Mn(G), denoted by [v], is a set containing v and every vertex with the parent in [v]. As we will see later on it is crucial to observe that generation is an independent set. ′ The graph Mn(G) − Xn, denoted by Mn(G), is called the weak Mycielskian. M ′ G Naturally, the sequence n( ) n≥0 based on weak Mycielskians is defined anal- M G M ′ G M ′ G ogously to n( ) n≥0. Similarly, it holds n−1( ) ≤ n( ) and it is not hard ′ to see that Mn(G) ≤ Mn(G). 1166 M. Borowiecki, P. Borowiecki, E. Drgas-Burchardt and ... Since in this work we consider Mycielskians with initial graphs being com- plete, with Kp as the initial graph we gain the ability of stating the following property. Property 3. Each vertex v of the initial graph Kp is adjacent to all vertices of ′ Mn(Kp) except the vertices in [v]. We conclude this section with another basic property of weak Mycielskians. ′ Property 4. For every p ≥ 2 and n ≥ 0 it holds χMn(Kp) = p. Indeed, it is not hard to argue that if G′ is a graph obtained from G by adding a vertex v′ such that in G′ the neighborhood of v′ and some vertex v = v′ are the same, then χ(G′)= χ(G). Therefore, following the definition of weak Mycielskian ′ ′ ′ for every n ≥ 0 it holds χMn+1(Kp) = χMn(Kp), and since M0(Kp) = Kp, ′ it follows that weak Mycielskians Mn(Kp) are p-chromatic. 3. Generators ′ Theorem 5. Let p ≥ 2. A graph G can be embedded in Mn(Kp) for some n ≥ 1 if and only if χ(G) ≤ p. ′ p Proof. Since by Property 4, M (Kp) ⊆ O , it remains to prove that every p- ′ colorable graph G of order n is an induced subgraph of Mm(Kp) for some m ≥ n. Let V1,...,Vp be the color classes of G with cardinalities n1,...,np, respec- tively. First, we will show that the complete p-partite graph K=Kn1,...,np of order ′ n is an induced subgraph of Mn(Kp). For this purpose let V (Kp)= {v1,...,vp}. Now, for the class V1 choose n1 children of the vertex v1 from levels L1,...,Ln1 (note that such a choice is unique). Next, for each class Vi with i ∈ {2,...,p} choose ni children of the vertex vi from the levels Ln1+···+ni−1+1,...,Ln1+···+ni .