Locally interval graphs are circular-arc graphs

Abstract

Circular-arc graphs are graphs that can be represented as intersection graphs of subpaths of a cycle. Interval graphs are graphs that can be represented as intersection graphs of subpaths of a path. Since cycles are locally paths, every circular-arc graph is locally interval. In this paper, we prove that the converse holds as well: every locally interval graph is a circular-arc graph. This result and its proofs are connected to a recent broader study of structural local-global theory and build on previous work on locally chordal graphs.