Biclique-free graph


In graph theory, a branch of mathematics, a -biclique-free graph is a graph that has no as a subgraph. A family of graphs is biclique-free if there exists a number such that the graphs in the family are all -biclique-free. The biclique-free graph families form one of the most general types of sparse graph family. They arise in incidence problems in discrete geometry, and have also been used in parameterized complexity.

Properties

Sparsity

According to the Kővári–Sós–Turán theorem, every -vertex -biclique-free graph has edges, significantly fewer than a dense graph would have. Conversely, if a graph family is defined by forbidden subgraphs or closed under the operation of taking subgraphs, and does not include dense graphs of arbitrarily large size, it must be -biclique-free for some, for otherwise it would include large dense complete bipartite graphs.
As a lower bound, conjectured that every maximal -biclique-free bipartite graph has at least edges, where and are the numbers of vertices on each side of its bipartition.

Relation to other types of sparse graph family

A graph with degeneracy is necessarily -biclique-free. Additionally, any nowhere dense family of graphs is biclique-free. More generally, if there exists an -vertex graph that is not a 1-shallow minor of any graph in the family, then the family must be -biclique-free, because all -vertex graphs are 1-shallow minors of.
In this way, the biclique-free graph families unify two of the most general classes of sparse graphs.

Applications

Discrete geometry

In discrete geometry, many types of incidence graph are necessarily biclique-free. As a simple example, the graph of incidences between a finite set of points and lines in the Euclidean plane necessarily has no subgraph.

Parameterized complexity

Biclique-free graphs have been used in parameterized complexity to develop algorithms that are efficient for sparse graphs with suitably small input parameter values. In particular, finding a dominating set of size, on -biclique-free graphs, is fixed-parameter tractable when parameterized by, even though there is strong evidence that this is not possible using alone as a parameter. Similar results are true for many variations of the dominating set problem. It is also possible to test whether one dominating set of size at most can be converted to another one by a chain of vertex insertions and deletions, preserving the dominating property, with the same parameterization.