Independence complexes of generalized Mycielskian graphs

Abstract

We show that the homotopy type of the independence complex of the generalized Mycielskian of a graph $G$ is determined by the homotopy type of the independence complex of $G$ and the homotopy type of the independence complex of the Kronecker double cover of $G$. As an application we calculate the homotopy type for paths, cycles and the categorical product of two complete graphs.