(Even hole, triangle)-free graphs revisited

Abstract

We revisit a classical paper about (even hole, triangle)-free graphs [Conforti, Cornu\'ejols, Kapoor and Vu\v skovi\'c, Triangle-free graphs that are signable without even holes, Journal of Graph Theory, 34(3), 204--220, 2000]. In fact, the previous study describes a more general class, the so called triangle-free odd signable graphs, and we further generalise the class to the (theta, triangle, wac)-free graphs (not worth defining in an abstract). We exhibit a stronger structure theorem, by precisely describing basic classes and separators. We prove that the separators preserve the treewidth and several properties. Some consequences are a recognition algorithm with running time $O(|V(G)|^4|E(G)|)$, a proof that the treewidth of graphs in the class is at most~4 (improving a previous bound of~5), and a simple criterion to decide if a graph in the class is planar.