Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 December 2010
To partition the edges of a chordal graph on n vertices into cliques may require as many as n2/6 cliques; there is an example requiring this many, which is also a threshold graph and a split graph. It is unknown whether this many cliques will always suffice. We are able to show that (1 − c)n2/4 cliques will suffice for some c > 0.
Introduction
We consider undirected graphs without loops or multiple edges. The graph Kn on n vertices for which every pair of distinct vertices induces an edge is called a complete graph or a clique on n vertices. If G is any graph, we call any complete subgraph of G a clique of G (we do not require that it be a maximal complete subgraph). A clique covering of G is a set of cliques of G that together contain each edge of G at least once; if each edge is covered exactly once we call it a clique partition. The clique covering number cc(G) and clique partition number cp(G) are the smallest cardinalities of, respectively, a clique covering and a clique partition of G.
The question of calculating these numbers was raised by Orlin in 1977. DeBruijn and Erdős had already proved, in 1948, that partitioning Kn into smaller cliques required at least n cliques. Some more recent studies motivating the current paper include.
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