On a conjecture concerning helly circle graphs

• Autor(a) principal: Durán,Guillermo
• Data de Publicação: 2003
• Outros Autores: Gravano,Agustín, Groshaus,Marina, Protti,Fábio, Szwarcfiter,Jayme L.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Pesquisa operacional (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0101-74382003000100016
• topic: circle graph; Helly circle graph

We say that G is an e-circle graph if there is a bijection between its vertices and straight lines on the cartesian plane such that two vertices are adjacent in G if and only if the corresponding lines intersect inside the circle of radius one. This definition suggests a method for deciding whether a given graph G is an e-circle graph, by constructing a convenient system S of equations and inequations which represents the structure of G, in such a way that G is an e-circle graph if and only if S has a solution. In fact, e-circle graphs are exactly the circle graphs (intersection graphs of chords in a circle), and thus this method provides an analytic way for recognizing circle graphs. A graph G is a Helly circle graph if G is a circle graph and there exists a model of G by chords such that every three pairwise intersecting chords intersect at the same point. A conjecture by Durán (2000) states that G is a Helly circle graph if and only if G is a circle graph and contains no induced diamonds (a diamond is a graph formed by four vertices and five edges). Many unsuccessful efforts - mainly based on combinatorial and geometrical approaches - have been done in order to validate this conjecture. In this work, we utilize the ideas behind the definition of e-circle graphs and restate this conjecture in terms of an equivalence between two systems of equations and inequations, providing a new, analytic tool to deal with it.