On first-order transductions of classes of graphs

Abstract: We study various aspects of the first-order transduction quasi-order on graph classes, which provides a way of measuring the relative complexity of graph classes based on whether one can encode the other using a formula of first-order (FO) logic. In contrast with the conjectured simplicity of the transduction quasi-order for monadic second-order logic, the FO-transduction quasi-order is very complex, and many standard properties from structural graph theory and model theory naturally appear in it. We prove a local normal form for transductions among other general results and constructions, which we illustrate via several examples and via the characterizations of the transductions of some simple classes. We then turn to various aspects of the quasi-order, including the (non-)existence of minimum and maximum classes for certain properties, the strictness of the pathwidth hierarchy, the fact that the quasi-order is not a lattice, and the role of weakly sparse classes in the quasi-order.