On nested and 2-nested graphs: Two subclasses of graphs between threshold and split graphs

Abstract

A (0, 1)-matrix has the Consecutive Ones Property (C1P) for the rows if there is a permutation of its columns such that the ones in each row appear consecutively. We say a (0, 1)-matrix is nested if it has the consecutive ones property for the rows (C1P) and every two rows are either disjoint or nested. We say a (0, 1)-matrix is 2-nested if it has the C1P and admits a partition of its rows into two sets such that the submatrix induced by each of these sets is nested. We say a split graph G with split partition (K, S) is nested (resp. 2-nested) if the matrix A(S, K) which indicates the adjacency between vertices in S and K is nested (resp. 2-nested). In this work, we characterize nested and 2-nested matrices by minimal forbidden submatrices. This characterization leads to a minimal forbidden induced subgraph characterization of these graph classes, which are superclasses of threshold graphs and subclasses of split and circle graphs.