PathwidthIn graph theory, a path decomposition of a graph G is, informally, a representation of G as a "thickened" path graph, and the pathwidth of G is a number that measures how much the path was thickened to form G. More formally, a path-decomposition is a sequence of subsets of vertices of G such that the endpoints of each edge appear in one of the subsets and such that each vertex appears in a contiguous subsequence of the subsets, and the pathwidth is one less than the size of the largest set in such a decomposition.
TreewidthIn graph theory, the treewidth of an undirected graph is an integer number which specifies, informally, how far the graph is from being a tree. The smallest treewidth is 1; the graphs with treewidth 1 are exactly the trees and the forests. The graphs with treewidth at most 2 are the series–parallel graphs. The maximal graphs with treewidth exactly k are called k-trees, and the graphs with treewidth at most k are called partial k-trees. Many other well-studied graph families also have bounded treewidth.
Graph minorIn graph theory, an undirected graph H is called a minor of the graph G if H can be formed from G by deleting edges, vertices and by contracting edges. The theory of graph minors began with Wagner's theorem that a graph is planar if and only if its minors include neither the complete graph K5 nor the complete bipartite graph K3,3. The Robertson–Seymour theorem implies that an analogous forbidden minor characterization exists for every property of graphs that is preserved by deletions and edge contractions.
Clique (graph theory)In the mathematical area of graph theory, a clique (ˈkliːk or ˈklɪk) is a subset of vertices of an undirected graph such that every two distinct vertices in the clique are adjacent. That is, a clique of a graph is an induced subgraph of that is complete. Cliques are one of the basic concepts of graph theory and are used in many other mathematical problems and constructions on graphs. Cliques have also been studied in computer science: the task of finding whether there is a clique of a given size in a graph (the clique problem) is NP-complete, but despite this hardness result, many algorithms for finding cliques have been studied.
