Line graph

In the mathematical discipline of graph theory, the line graph of an undirected graph G is another graph L(G) that represents the adjacencies between edges of G. L(G) is constructed in the following way: for each edge in G, make a vertex in L(G); for every two edges in G that have a vertex in common, make an edge between their corresponding vertices in L(G).

The name line graph comes from a paper by Harary & Norman (1960) although both Whitney (1932) and Krausz (1943) used the construction before this.^[1] Other terms used for the line graph include the covering graph, the derivative, the edge-to-vertex dual, the conjugate, the representative graph, and the θ-obrazom,^[1] as well as the edge graph, the interchange graph, the adjoint graph, and the derived graph.^[2]

Hassler Whitney (1932) proved that with one exceptional case the structure of a connected graph G can be recovered completely from its line graph.^[3] Many other properties of line graphs follow by translating the properties of the underlying graph from vertices into edges, and by Whitney's theorem the same translation can also be done in the other direction. Line graphs are claw-free, and the line graphs of bipartite graphs are perfect. Line graphs are characterized by nine forbidden subgraphs and can be recognized in linear time.

Various extensions of the concept of a line graph have been studied, including line graphs of line graphs, line graphs of multigraphs, line graphs of hypergraphs, and line graphs of weighted graphs.