graph theory In mathematics, graph theory is the study of ''graphs'', which are mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects. A graph in this context is made up of '' vertices'' (also called ''nodes'' or ''points'') which are conne ...

, a branch of

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

, a cluster graph is a

graph Graph may refer to: Mathematics *Graph (discrete mathematics), a structure made of vertices and edges **Graph theory, the study of such graphs and their properties *Graph (topology), a topological space resembling a graph in the sense of discre ...

formed from the

disjoint union In mathematics, a disjoint union (or discriminated union) of a family of sets (A_i : i\in I) is a set A, often denoted by \bigsqcup_ A_i, with an injection of each A_i into A, such that the images of these injections form a partition of A (th ...

complete graph In the mathematical field of graph theory, a complete graph is a simple undirected graph in which every pair of distinct vertices is connected by a unique edge. A complete digraph is a directed graph in which every pair of distinct vertices is c ...

s. Equivalently, a graph is a cluster graph

if and only if In logic and related fields such as mathematics and philosophy, "if and only if" (shortened as "iff") is a biconditional logical connective between statements, where either both statements are true or both are false. The connective is bicondi ...

it has no three-vertex

induced path In the mathematical area of graph theory, an induced path in an undirected graph is a path that is an induced subgraph of . That is, it is a sequence of vertices in such that each two adjacent vertices in the sequence are connected by an edge ...

; for this reason, the cluster graphs are also called -free graphs. They are the

complement graph In the mathematical field of graph theory, the complement or inverse of a graph is a graph on the same vertices such that two distinct vertices of are adjacent if and only if they are not adjacent in . That is, to generate the complement of a ...

s of the complete

multipartite graph In graph theory, a part of mathematics, a -partite graph is a graph whose vertices are (or can be) partitioned into different independent sets. Equivalently, it is a graph that can be colored with colors, so that no two endpoints of an edge h ...

sCluster graphs
Information System on Graph Classes and their Inclusions, accessed 2016-06-26. and the 2-leaf powers. The cluster graphs are transitively closed, and every transitively closed undirected graph is a cluster graph.

Related graph classes

Every cluster graph is a

block graph In graph theory, a branch of combinatorial mathematics, a block graph or clique tree. is a type of undirected graph in which every biconnected component (block) is a clique. Block graphs are sometimes erroneously called Husimi trees (after K� ...

, a

cograph In graph theory, a cograph, or complement-reducible graph, or ''P''4-free graph, is a graph that can be generated from the single-vertex graph ''K''1 by complementation and disjoint union. That is, the family of cographs is the smallest class of ...

, and a

claw-free graph In graph theory, an area of mathematics, a claw-free graph is a graph that does not have a claw as an induced subgraph. A claw is another name for the complete bipartite graph ''K''1,3 (that is, a star graph comprising three edges, three leaves, ...

. Every

maximal independent set In graph theory, a maximal independent set (MIS) or maximal stable set is an independent set that is not a subset of any other independent set. In other words, there is no vertex outside the independent set that may join it because it is max ...

in a cluster graph chooses a single vertex from each cluster, so the size of such a set always equals the number of clusters; because all maximal independent sets have the same size, cluster graphs are well-covered. The

Turán graph The Turán graph, denoted by T(n,r), is a complete multipartite graph; it is formed by partitioning a set of n vertices into r subsets, with sizes as equal as possible, and then connecting two vertices by an edge if and only if they belong to di ...

s are

s of cluster graphs, with all complete subgraphs of equal or nearly-equal size. The locally clustered graph (graphs in which every

neighborhood A neighbourhood (British English, Irish English, Australian English and Canadian English) or neighborhood (American English; see spelling differences) is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town, suburb or rural area, ...

is a cluster graph) are the

diamond-free graph In the mathematical field of graph theory, the diamond graph is a planar, undirected graph with 4 vertices and 5 edges. It consists of a complete graph minus one edge. The diamond graph has radius 1, diameter 2, girth 3, chroma ...

s, another family of graphs that contains the cluster graphs. When a cluster graph is formed from cliques that are all the same size, the overall graph is a

homogeneous graph In mathematics, a ''k''-ultrahomogeneous graph is a graph in which every isomorphism between two of its induced subgraphs of at most ''k'' vertices can be extended to an automorphism of the whole graph. A ''k''-homogeneous graph obeys a weakened ver ...

, meaning that every

isomorphism In mathematics, an isomorphism is a structure-preserving mapping between two structures of the same type that can be reversed by an inverse mapping. Two mathematical structures are isomorphic if an isomorphism exists between them. The word is ...

between two of its

induced subgraph In the mathematical field of graph theory, an induced subgraph of a graph is another graph, formed from a subset of the vertices of the graph and ''all'' of the edges (from the original graph) connecting pairs of vertices in that subset. Defini ...

s can be extended to an

automorphism In mathematics, an automorphism is an isomorphism from a mathematical object to itself. It is, in some sense, a symmetry of the object, and a way of mapping the object to itself while preserving all of its structure. The set of all automorphisms ...

of the whole graph. With only two exceptions, the cluster graphs and their complements are the only finite homogeneous graphs, and infinite cluster graphs also form one of only a small number of different types of

countably infinite In mathematics, a set is countable if either it is finite or it can be made in one to one correspondence with the set of natural numbers. Equivalently, a set is ''countable'' if there exists an injective function from it into the natural numbers; ...

homogeneous graphs.

Computational problems

subcoloring In graph theory, a subcoloring is an assignment of colors to a graph's vertices such that each color class induces a vertex disjoint union of cliques. That is, each color class should form a cluster graph. The subchromatic number χS(''G'') of a ...

of a graph is a partition of its vertices into induced cluster graphs. Thus, the cluster graphs are exactly the graphs of subchromatic number 1. The computational problem of finding a small set of edges to add or remove from a graph to transform it into a cluster graph is called cluster editing. It is

NP-complete In computational complexity theory, a problem is NP-complete when: # it is a problem for which the correctness of each solution can be verified quickly (namely, in polynomial time) and a brute-force search algorithm can find a solution by tryi ...

but

fixed-parameter tractable In computer science, parameterized complexity is a branch of computational complexity theory that focuses on classifying computational problems according to their inherent difficulty with respect to ''multiple'' parameters of the input or output. T ...

References

{{reflist Graph families Perfect graphs