Generalized Line Graphs: Cartesian Products and Complexity of Recognition

Putting the concept of line graph in a more general setting, for a positive integer k the k-line graph Lk(G) of a graph G has the Kk-subgraphs of G as its vertices, and two vertices of Lk(G) are adjacent if the corresponding copies of Kk in G share k− 1 vertices. Then, 2-line graph is just the line graph in usual sense, whilst 3-line graph is also known as triangle graph. The k-anti-Gallai graph 4k(G) of G is a specified subgraph of Lk(G) in which two vertices are adjacent if the corresponding two Kk-subgraphs are contained in a common Kk+1-subgraph in G. We give a unified characterization for nontrivial connected graphs G and F such that the Cartesian product G F is a k-line graph. In particular for k = 3, this answers the question of Bagga (2004), yielding the necessary and sufficient condition that G is the line graph of a triangle-free graph and F is a complete graph (or vice versa). We show that for any k > 3, the k-line graph of a connected graph G is isomorphic to the line graph of G if and only if G = Kk+2. Furthermore, we prove that the recognition problem of k-line graphs and that of k-anti-Gallai graphs are NP-complete for each k > 3.