Clique cycle transversals in distance-hereditary graphs

Abstract A cycle transversal of a graph G is a subset T ⊆ V ( G ) such that T ∩ V ( C ) ≠ ∅ for every cycle C of G. A clique cycle transversal, or cct for short, is a cycle transversal which is a clique. Recognizing graphs which admit a cct can be done in polynomial time; however, no structural characterization of such graphs is known. We characterize distance-hereditary graphs admitting a cct in terms of forbidden induced subgraphs. This extends similar results for chordal graphs and cographs.