Infinite induced-saturated graphs

Abstract

A graph $G$ is $H$-induced-saturated if $G$ is $H$-free but deleting any edge or adding any edge creates an induced copy of $H$. There are non-trivial graphs $H$, such as $P_4$, for which no finite $H$-induced-saturated graph $G$ exists. We show that for every finite graph $H$ that is not a clique or an independent set, there always exists a countable $H$-induced-saturated graph. In fact, we show that a far stronger property can be achieved: there is a countably infinite $H$-free graph $G$ such that any graph $G^{\prime }\ne G$ obtained by making a locally finite set of changes to $G$ contains a copy of $H$.

26 pages, 13 figures