Prime vertex-minors of a prime graph

Abstract

A graph is prime if it does not admit a partition $(A,B)$ of its vertex set such that $\min\{|A|,|B|\} \geq 2$ and the rank of the $A\times B$ submatrix of its adjacency matrix is at most $1$. A vertex $v$ of a graph is non-essential if at least two of the three kinds of vertex-minor reductions at $v$ result in prime graphs. In 1994, Allys proved that every prime graph with at least four vertices has a non-essential vertex unless it is locally equivalent to a cycle graph. We prove that every prime graph with at least four vertices has at least two non-essential vertices unless it is locally equivalent to a cycle graph. As a corollary, we show that for a prime graph $G$ with at least six vertices and a vertex $x$, there is a vertex $v \ne x$ such that $G \setminus v$ or $G * v \setminus v$ is prime, unless $x$ is adjacent to all other vertices and $G$ is isomorphic to a particular graph on odd number of vertices. Furthermore, we show that a prime graph with at least four vertices has at least three non-essential vertices, unless it is locally equivalent to a graph consisting of at least two internally-disjoint paths between two fixed distinct vertices having no common neighbors. We also prove analogous results for pivot-minors.