On Clique Graph Recognition

Marisa Gutierrez1, Joao Meidanis2
1Departamento de Matematica Universidad Nacional de La Plata C. C. 172, (1900) La Plata, Argentina
2 Instituto de Computacao Universidade Estadual de Campinas P.O.Box 6176, 13084-971 Campinas, Brazil

Abstract

The clique operator \(K\) maps a graph \(G\) into its clique graph, which is the intersection graph of the (maximal) cliques of \(G\). Recognizing clique graphs is a problem known to be in NP, but no polynomial time algorithm or proof of NP-completeness is known. In this note we prove that this recognition problem can be reduced to the case of graphs of diameter at most two.