Distance Hereditary Graphs and the Interlace Polynomial

Abstract

The vertex-nullity interlace polynomial of a graph, described by Arratia, Bollob\'as and Sorkin as evolving from questions of DNA sequencing, and extended to a two-variable interlace polynomial by the same authors, evokes many open questions. These include relations between the interlace polynomial and the Tutte polynomial and the computational complexity of the vertex-nullity interlace polynomial. Here, we prove that the one-variable vertex-nullity interlace polynomial is in general #P-hard to compute. We also show a relation between the two-variable interlace polynomial and the topological Tutte polynomial of Bollob\'as and Riordan. We define the \gamma invariant as the coefficient of x^1 in the vertex-nullity interlace polynomial, analogously to the \beta invariant, which is the coefficient of x^1 in the Tutte polynomial. We then turn to distance hereditary graphs, and show that graphs in this class have \gamma invariant of 2^{n+1} when n true twins are added in their construction. We furthermore show that bipartite distance hereditary graphs are exactly the class of graphs with \gamma invariant 2, just as the series-parallel graphs are exactly the class of graphs with \beta invariant 1. In addition, we show that a bipartite distance hereditary graph arises precisely as the circle graph of any Euler circuit in the oriented medial graph of a series-parallel graph. From this we conclude that the vertex-nullity interlace polynomial is polynomial time to compute for bipartite distance hereditry graphs, just as the Tutte polynomial is polynomial time to compute for series-parallel graphs.