Cluster deletion and clique partitioning in graphs with bounded clique number

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Hauptverfasser: Galesi, Nicola, Huynh, Tony, Ranjbar, Fariba
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Galesi, Nicola
Huynh, Tony
Ranjbar, Fariba
author_facet Galesi, Nicola
Huynh, Tony
Ranjbar, Fariba
contents The Cluster Deletion problem takes a graph $G$ as input and asks for a minimum size set of edges $X$ such that $G-X$ is the disjoint union of complete graphs. An equivalent formulation is the Clique Partition problem, which asks to find a partition of $V(G)$ into cliques such that the number of edges in the cliques is maximized. We begin by giving a much simpler proof of a theorem of Gao, Hare, and Nastos that Cluster Deletion is efficiently solvable on the class of cographs. We then investigate Cluster Deletion and Clique Partition on permutation graphs, which are a superclass of cographs. Our findings suggest that Cluster Deletion may be NP-hard on permutation graphs. Finally, we prove that for graphs with clique number at most $c$, there is a $\frac{2\binom{c}{2}}{\binom{c}{2}+1}$-approximation algorithm for Clique Partition. This is the first polynomial time algorithm which achieves an approximation ratio better than 2 for graphs with bounded clique number. More generally, our algorithm runs in polynomial time on any graph class for which Maximum Clique can be computed in polynomial time. We also provide a class of examples which shows that our approximation ratio is best possible.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_00922
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Cluster deletion and clique partitioning in graphs with bounded clique number
Galesi, Nicola
Huynh, Tony
Ranjbar, Fariba
Data Structures and Algorithms
Discrete Mathematics
Combinatorics
05C85, 05C69, 90C27
G.2.2; F.2.0
The Cluster Deletion problem takes a graph $G$ as input and asks for a minimum size set of edges $X$ such that $G-X$ is the disjoint union of complete graphs. An equivalent formulation is the Clique Partition problem, which asks to find a partition of $V(G)$ into cliques such that the number of edges in the cliques is maximized. We begin by giving a much simpler proof of a theorem of Gao, Hare, and Nastos that Cluster Deletion is efficiently solvable on the class of cographs. We then investigate Cluster Deletion and Clique Partition on permutation graphs, which are a superclass of cographs. Our findings suggest that Cluster Deletion may be NP-hard on permutation graphs. Finally, we prove that for graphs with clique number at most $c$, there is a $\frac{2\binom{c}{2}}{\binom{c}{2}+1}$-approximation algorithm for Clique Partition. This is the first polynomial time algorithm which achieves an approximation ratio better than 2 for graphs with bounded clique number. More generally, our algorithm runs in polynomial time on any graph class for which Maximum Clique can be computed in polynomial time. We also provide a class of examples which shows that our approximation ratio is best possible.
title Cluster deletion and clique partitioning in graphs with bounded clique number
topic Data Structures and Algorithms
Discrete Mathematics
Combinatorics
05C85, 05C69, 90C27
G.2.2; F.2.0
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.00922