Inflated graphs with equal independence number and upper irredundance number (Q5959093)

For a graph \(G\), let \(N[x]\) denote the set consisting of a vertex \(x\) together with all neighbors of \(x\) in \(G\). A set \(I\) of vertices of \(G\) is called irredundant if for each \(x\in I\) there is a vertex from \(N[x]\) that is not adjacent to any other vertex of \(I\). The maximum cardinality of an irredundant set of \(G\) is denoted by \(\text{IR}(G)\). Clearly, every maximal independent set is irredundant, and thus \(\alpha(G)\leq \text{IR}(G)\) for all graphs \(G\), where \(\alpha(G)\) denotes the maximum cardinality of an independent set of \(G\). In this paper, the graphs satisfying \(\alpha(G_I)=\text{IR}(G_I)\) are characterized, where \(G_I\) denotes the inflation of \(G\), defined in the following way: the inflation \(G_I\) of a graph \(G\) is obtained from \(G\) by replacing each vertex \(x\) of degree \(d(x)\) by a clique \(X\cong K_{d(x)}\) and each edge \(xy\) by an edge between two vertices of the corresponding cliques \(X\) and \(Y\) of \(G_I\) in such a way that the edges of \(G_I\), which come from the edges of \(G\), form a matching of \(G_I\).