VERY WELL-COVERED GRAPHS OF GIRTH AT LEAST FOUR AND LOCAL MAXIMUM STABLE SET GREEDOIDS

Abstract

A maximum stable set in a graph G is a stable set of maximum cardinality. S is a local maximum stable set of G, and we write S ∈ Ψ(G), if S is a maximum stable set of the subgraph induced by S ∪ N(S), where N(S) is the neighborhood of S. Nemhauser and Trotter Jr. [Vertex packings: structural properties and algorithms, Math. Program.8 (1975) 232–248], proved that any S ∈ Ψ(G) is a subset of a maximum stable set of G. In [Levit and Mandrescu, A new greedoid: the family of local maximum stable sets of a forest, Discrete Appl. Math.124 (2002) 91–101] we have shown that the family Ψ(T) of a forest T forms a greedoid on its vertex set. The cases where G is bipartite, triangle-free, well-covered, while Ψ(G) is a greedoid, were analyzed in [Levit and Mandrescu, Local maximum stable sets in bipartite graphs with uniquely restricted maximum matchings, Discrete Appl. Math.132 (2004) 163–174], [Levit and Mandrescu, Triangle-free graphs with uniquely restricted maximum matchings and their corresponding greedoids, Discrete Appl. Math.155 (2007) 2414–2425], [Levit and Mandrescu, Well-covered graphs and greedoids, Proc. 14th Computing: The Australasian Theory Symp. (CATS2008), Wollongong, NSW, Conferences in Research and Practice in Information Technology, Vol. 77 (2008) 89–94], respectively. In this paper we demonstrate that if G is a very well-covered graph of girth ≥4, then the family Ψ(G) is a greedoid if and only if G has a unique perfect matching.