  Many hard graph problems can be solved efficiently when restricted to graphs
of bounded treewidth, and more generally to graphs of bounded clique-width. But
there is a price to be paid for this generality, exemplified by the four
problems MaxCut, Graph Coloring, Hamiltonian Cycle and Edge Dominating Set that
are all FPT parameterized by treewidth but none of which can be FPT
parameterized by clique-width unless FPT = W[1], as shown by Fomin et al [7,
8]. We therefore seek a structural graph parameter that shares some of the
generality of clique-width without paying this price. Based on splits, branch
decompositions and the work of Vatshelle [18] on Maximum Matching-width, we
consider the graph parameter sm-width which lies between treewidth and
clique-width. Some graph classes of unbounded treewidth, like
distance-hereditary graphs, have bounded sm-width. We show that MaxCut, Graph
Coloring, Hamiltonian Cycle and Edge Dominating Set are all FPT parameterized
by sm-width.
