Simultaneous Graph Parameters and How to Bound Them

Abstract

Beisegel et al. [SWAT 2024] introduced the concept of simultaneous $\mathcal{C}$-numbers which associate a graph class $\mathcal{C}$ with a graph parameter. Given a graph $G$, the simultaneous $\mathcal{C}$-number is the smallest number $d$ for which there is a graph $H \in \mathcal{C}$ and a function $L : V(G) \to \mathcal{P}(\{1,\dots,d\})$ such that two vertices $u$ and $v$ are adjacent in $G$ if and only if they are adjacent in $H$ and their sets $L(u)$ and $L(v)$ are not disjoint. We study the relation of these simultaneous $\mathcal{C}$-numbers to other graph parameters. In particular, we investigate which parameters fulfill the following property: Parameter $p$ is bounded on class $\mathcal{C}$ if and only if $p$ is bounded on the class of graphs of simultaneous $\mathcal{C}$-number $d$ for any fixed $d$. We show that many well-known graph parameters have this property. Examples are cliquewidth, twin-width, mim-width, tree independence number, thinness as well as boxicity. We furthermore present some parameters, including modular-width and tree-length, that do no have this property. We also study when a parameter forms an upper bound on a simultaneous $\mathcal{C}$-number. We characterize those graph classes $\mathcal{C}$ for which the parameters treewidth, pathwidth, bandwidth, and treedepth upper bound the simultaneous $\mathcal{C}$-number. Furthermore, we present sufficient conditions on a class $\mathcal{C}$, such that $\mathcal{P}$-modular cardinality upper bounds the simultaneous $\mathcal{C}$-number, where $\mathcal{P}$ is replaced by the complete graphs, the edgeless graphs, cographs, or the class $\mathcal{C}$ itself. On the contrary, we show that modular width never forms an upper bound on a non-trivial simultaneous $\mathcal{C}$-number. Finally, we present some general algorithmic results on the clique problem and computation of simultaneous $\mathcal{C}$-numbers.