Bull-free Berge graphs are perfect (Q1095938)

A bull is the (self-complementary) graph with \(V(G)=\{a,b,c,d,e\}\) and \(E(G)=\{ab,ac,bc,bd,ce\}\); and a graph G is called Berge if neigher G nor its complement contains a chordless cycle whose length is odd and at least five. Then the Strong Perfect Graph Conjecture is that every Berge graph is perfect. This paper proves that bull-free Berge graphs are perfect. The proof relies on a lemma that no minimal imperfect graph contains a so-called homogeneous pair, which generalizes a result of \textit{Olariu} [`No antitwins in minimal imperfect graphs', J. Comb. Theory (B) to appear)]. The proof also relies on the result of the first author [J. Comb. Theory, Ser. B 39, 189-199 (1985)] that no minimal imperfect graph contains a star-cutset.