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arXiv · 2204.12455

Resolution of the Erd\H{o}s-Sauer problem on regular subgraphs

Oliver Janzer·Benny Sudakov
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Abstract

In this paper we completely resolve the well-known problem of Erd\H{o}s and Sauer from 1975 which asks for the maximum number of edges an $n$-vertex graph can have without containing a $k$-regular subgraph, for some fixed integer $k\geq 3$. We prove that any $n$-vertex graph with average degree at least $C_k\log \log n$ contains a $k$-regular subgraph. This matches the lower bound of Pyber, R\"odl and Szemer\'edi and substantially improves an old result of Pyber, who showed that average degree at least $C_k\log n$ is enough. Our method can also be used to settle asymptotically a problem raised by Erd\H{o}s and Simonovits in 1970 on almost regular subgraphs of sparse graphs and to make progress on the well-known question of Thomassen from 1983 on finding subgraphs with large girth and large average degree.

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Oliver Janzer, Benny Sudakov. 2022-04-26. Resolution of the Erd\H{o}s-Sauer problem on regular subgraphs. https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.12455

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