Vertex-Partitioning into Fixed Additive Induced-Hereditary Properties is NP-hard

Abstract

Can the vertices of an arbitrary graph $G$ be partitioned into $A \cup B$, so that $G[A]$ is a line-graph and $G[B]$ is a forest? Can $G$ be partitioned into a planar graph and a perfect graph? The NP-completeness of these problems are special cases of our result: if ${\cal P}$ and ${\cal Q}$ are additive induced-hereditary graph properties, then $({\cal P}, {\cal Q})$-colouring is NP-hard, with the sole exception of graph $2$-colouring (the case where both ${\cal P}$ and ${\cal Q}$ are the set ${\cal O}$ of finite edgeless graphs). Moreover, $({\cal P}, {\cal Q})$-colouring is NP-complete iff ${\cal P}$- and ${\cal Q}$-recognition are both in NP. This completes the proof of a conjecture of Kratochvíl and Schiermeyer, various authors having already settled many sub-cases.