Transitivity on subclasses of chordal graphs

Abstract: Let $G=(V, E)$ be a graph, where $V$ and $E$ are the vertex and edge sets, respectively. For two disjoint subsets $A$ and $B$ of $V$, we say $A$ \textit{dominates} $B$ if every vertex of $B$ is adjacent to at least one vertex of $A$ in $G$. A vertex partition $\pi = {V_1, V_2, \ldots, V_k}$ of $G$ is called a \emph{transitive $k$-partition} if $V_i$ dominates $V_j$ for all $i,j$, where $1\leq i<j\leq k$. The maximum integer $k$ for which the above partition exists is called \emph{transitivity} of $G$ and it is denoted by $Tr(G)$. The \textsc{Maximum Transitivity Problem} is to find a transitive partition of a given graph with the maximum number of partitions. It was known that the decision version of \textsc{Maximum Transitivity Problem} is NP-complete for chordal graphs [Iterated colorings of graphs, \emph{Discrete Mathematics}, 278, 2004]. In this paper, we first prove that this problem can be solved in linear time for \emph{split graphs} and for the \emph{complement of bipartite chain graphs}, two subclasses of chordal graphs. We also discuss Nordhaus-Gaddum type relations for transitivity and provide counterexamples for an open problem posed by J. T. Hedetniemi and S. T. Hedetniemi [The transitivity of a graph, \emph{J. Combin. Math. Combin. Comput}, 104, 2018]. Finally, we characterize transitively critical graphs having fixed transitivity.