Searcharxiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 2001.03506

A short proof of the blow-up lemma for approximate decompositions

Stefan Ehard·Felix Joos
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Kim, K\"uhn, Osthus and Tyomkyn (Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 371 (2019), 4655--4742) greatly extended the well-known blow-up lemma of Koml\'os, S\'ark\"ozy and Szemer\'edi by proving a `blow-up lemma for approximate decompositions' which states that multipartite quasirandom graphs can be almost decomposed into any collection of bounded degree graphs with the same multipartite structure and slightly fewer edges. This result has already been used by Joos, Kim, K\"uhn and Osthus to prove the tree packing conjecture due to Gy\'arf\'as and Lehel from 1976 and Ringel's conjecture from 1963 for bounded degree trees as well as implicitly in the recent resolution of the Oberwolfach problem (asked by Ringel in 1967) by Glock, Joos, Kim, K\"uhn and Osthus. Here we present a new and significantly shorter proof of the blow-up lemma for approximate decompositions. In fact, we prove a more general theorem that yields packings with stronger quasirandom properties so that it can be combined with Keevash's results on designs to obtain results of the following form. For all $\varepsilon>0$, $r\in \mathbb{N}$ and all large $n$ (such that $r$ divides $n-1$), there is a decomposition of $K_n$ into any collection of $r$-regular graphs $H_1,\ldots,H_{(n-1)/r}$ on $n$ vertices provided that $H_1,\ldots,H_{\varepsilon n}$ contain each at least $\varepsilon n$ vertices in components of size at most $\varepsilon^{-1}$.

Explore related subjects

math.CO

Keep this discovery

BibTeXRIS

Stefan Ehard, Felix Joos. 2020-01-10. A short proof of the blow-up lemma for approximate decompositions. https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.03506

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Balanced even cycles in signed graphs:Tur\'an bounds, double covers, and parity obstructions

We study Tur\'an problems for balanced even cycles in simple signed graphs, where signed subgraphs are considered up to switching. For every balanced bipartite signed graph, the signed and ordinary Tur\'an numbers differ by at most a factor of two. Our main structural results concern the underlying graphs that admit a signing in which every $2k$-cycle is unbalanced. We characterize these graphs by the absence of an odd dependence among their $2k$-cycle incidence vectors, give a cohomological formulation, and construct subgraph-minimal obstructions of arbitrarily large order. In particular, there is no finite forbidden-subgraph characterization. We also give an exact closed-walk criterion for cycles in double covers and derive a direct signed breadth-first-search upper bound. As applications, we prove \[ \hex(n,C_{+4})=\left(\frac{\sqrt2}{2}+o(1)\right)n^{3/2} \] and study the signed hexagon number $R_6(n)=\hex(n,\{C_{-3},C_{+6}\})$. We characterize the underlying graphs counted by $R_6$ and express it as an extremal problem for ordinary $C_6$-free graphs with a prescribed involution. For every sufficiently large $n$, we construct examples with $\Omega(n^{4/3})$ edges, and we give an equivariant construction attaining the coefficient obtained from the F\"uredi--Naor--Verstra\"ete lower bound by double-cover transfer. Finally, we give $n$-vertex $C_{+10}$-free signed graphs with $\Omega(n^{6/5})$ edges and use octagon examples to illustrate the limitations of theta-freeness as a signing criterion.

math.CO↗
arXiv2026

Fractional DP-colorings of $d$-degenerate locally sparse graphs

Bernshteyn, Kostochka, and Zhu (2020) introduced the notion of fractional DP-coloring, which generalizes both fractional coloring and fractional list coloring. Among several foundational results, they proved that every $d$-degenerate bipartite graph $G$ satisfies $\chi_f^{\mathrm{DP}} \le (1 + o(1))\frac{d}{\log d}$, and that this bound is optimal---a stark contrast to ordinary fractional coloring. In this paper, we extend this upper bound to all $d$-degenerate triangle-free graphs, proving that $\chi_f^{\mathrm{DP}} \le (4 + o(1))\frac{d}{\log d}$. This generalizes a recent result of Martinsson and Steiner (2025) for ordinary fractional coloring. We derive this result as a corollary of a more general upper bound concerning locally sparse graph orderings. Specifically, a $d$-degenerate graph $G$ is left $k$-locally-sparse if it admits a degeneracy ordering in which, for every vertex $v$, the subgraph induced by its back-neighbors contains at most $k$ edges. We show that if a $d$-degenerate graph $G$ is left $\frac{d^2}{f}$-locally-sparse, then \[ \chi_f^{\mathrm{DP}}(G) \le (8 + o(1))\frac{d}{\log f}. \] This immediately yields an identical upper bound on the ordinary fractional chromatic number $\chi_f(G)$, improving upon the leading constants of previously known bounds. Additionally, we establish the asymptotic sharpness of this result up to the leading constant. For any $1 \ll f \le d^2$, we construct $d$-degenerate graphs that are left $\frac{d^2}{f}$-locally-sparse and satisfy $\chi_f(G) \ge (1 - o(1))\frac{d}{\log f}$. Finally, as applications of our main theorem, we obtain improved upper bounds on the fractional DP-chromatic number of $d$-degenerate $K_{1,t,t}$-free graphs, as well as $K_{t,t,t}$-free graphs with maximum degree $\Delta$. Notably, these bounds improve upon existing results even in the setting of ordinary fractional coloring.

math.CO↗
arXiv2026

Erd\H{o}s-S\'{o}s for digraphs

It is shown that every Eulerian digraph on $n$ vertices with more than $(t-1)n$ arcs contains every oriented tree with $t$ edges. The digraphs have no loops or repeated arcs, but opposite arcs are permitted. The bound is sharp for each fixed oriented tree, as witnessed by disjoint unions of complete bidirected graphs. Previously, such tight bounds were not known, even just for directed paths. This can be considered as a directed analog of the recently proved Erd\H{o}s-S\'os conjecture. The result was proved by GPT-6 Astra.

math.CO↗