Every fork-free graph is perfectly weight divisible

Abstract

A graph $G$ is \emph{perfectly weight divisible} if, for every positive integral weight function on $V(G)$ and every induced subgraph $H$ of $G$ with at least one edge, the vertex set $V(H)$ can be partitioned into two sets $A$ and $B$ such that $H[A]$ is perfect and the maximum weight of a clique in $H[B]$ is smaller than the maximum weight of a clique in $H$. Perfect divisibility and its weighted form provide a natural approach to polynomial $χ$-boundedness. A \emph{fork}, also known as a \emph{chair}, is the graph obtained from a claw by subdividing one of its edges once. In this paper, we prove that every fork-free graph is perfectly weight divisible. As a consequence, we confirm a conjecture of Sivaraman that every fork-free graph is perfectly divisible.