Classes of graphs with low complexity: The case of classes with bounded linear rankwidth

Abstract

Classes with bounded rankwidth are MSO-transductions of trees and classes with bounded linear rankwidth are MSO-transductions of paths – a result that shows a strong link between the properties of these graph classes considered from the point of view of structural graph theory and from the point of view of finite model theory. We take both views on classes with bounded linear rankwidth and prove structural and model theoretic properties of these classes. The structural results we obtain are the following. (1) The number of unlabeled graphs of order n with linear rank-width at most r is at most [(2r+1)(r+1)!2r23r+1]n (2) Graphs with linear rankwidth at most r are linearly χ-bounded. Actually, they have bounded c-chromatic number, meaning that they can be colored with f(r) colors, each color inducing a cograph. (3) To the contrary, based on a Ramsey-like argument, we prove for every proper hereditary family ℱ of graphs (like cographs) that there is a class with bounded rankwidth that does not have the property that graphs in it can be colored by a bounded number of colors, each inducing a subgraph in ℱ.From the model theoretical side we obtain the following results: (1) A direct short proof that graphs with linear rankwidth at most r are first-order transductions of linear orders. This result could also be derived from Colcombet’s theorem on first-order transduction of linear orders and the equivalence of linear rankwidth with linear cliquewidth. (2) For a class C with bounded linear rankwidth the following conditions are equivalent: (a) C is stable, (b) C excludes some half-graph as a semi-induced subgraph, (c) C is a first-order transduction of a class with bounded pathwidth. These results open the perspective to study classes admitting low linear rankwidth covers.