Efficient Domination for Some Subclasses of $P_6$-free Graphs in Polynomial Time

Abstract

Let G be a finite undirected graph. A vertex dominates itself and all its neighbors in G. A vertex set D is an efficient dominating set (e.d. for short) of G if every vertex of G is dominated by exactly one vertex of D. The Efficient Domination (ED) problem, which asks for the existence of an e.d. in G, is known to be $\mathbb {NP}$-complete even for very restricted graph classes such as $P_7$-free chordal graphs. The ED problem on a graph G can be reduced to the Maximum Weight Independent Set (MWIS) problem on the square of G. The complexity of the ED problem is an open question for $P_6$-free graphs and was open even for the subclass of $P_6$-free chordal graphs. In this paper, we show that squares of $P_6$-free chordal graphs that have an e.d. are chordal; this even holds for the larger class of ($P_6$, house, hole, domino)-free graphs. This implies that ED/WeightedED is solvable in polynomial time for ($P_6$, house, hole, domino)-free graphs; in particular, for $P_6$-free chordal graphs. Moreover, based on our result that squares of $P_6$-free graphs that have an e.d. are hole-free and some properties concerning odd antiholes, we show that squares of ($P_6$, house)-free graphs (($P_6$, bull)-free graphs, respectively) that have an e.d. are perfect. This implies that ED/WeightedED is solvable in polynomial time for ($P_6$, house)-free graphs and for ($P_6$, bull)-free graphs (the time bound for ($P_6$, house, hole, domino)-free graphs is better than that for ($P_6$, house)-free graphs). The complexity of the ED problem for $P_6$-free graphs remains an open question.