Vertex-minors and the Erd\H{o}s-Hajnal conjecture

Abstract

We prove that for every graph $H$, there exists $\varepsilon>0$ such that every $n$-vertex graph with no vertex-minors isomorphic to $H$ has a pair of disjoint sets $A$, $B$ of vertices such that $|A|, |B|\ge \varepsilon n$ and $A$ is complete or anticomplete to $B$. We deduce this from recent work of Chudnovsky, Scott, Seymour, and Spirkl (2018). This proves the analog of the Erd\H{o}s-Hajnal conjecture for vertex-minors.