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arXiv · 2607.05896

On the maximal anti-Ramsey problem of Burr, Erd\H{o}s, Graham, and S\'{o}s for $P_4$

Zixuan Yang
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Abstract

Given a graph $L$, the maximal anti-Ramsey function $\chiS(n,e,L)$ denotes the minimum integer $\chiS$ for which there exists an $n$-vertex graph $G$ with at least $e$ edges admitting an edge-coloring with $\chiS$ colors in which each copy of $L$ in $G$ is rainbow. In 1989, Burr, Erd\H{o}s, Graham, and S\'{o}s posed the following problem: Is it true that for all $\epsilon>0$, there exists $c(\epsilon)>0$ such that for all sufficiently large $n$, $ \chiS\left(n,\binom{n}{2}-\lfloor n^{2-\epsilon}\rfloor,P_4\right)>c(\epsilon)n^2. $ Very recently, Li, Ning, and Xie gave a negative answer to the problem for all $0< \epsilon< 1/2$. In this note, we establish that a quadratic lower bound holds in the complementary regime $ \epsilon\geq 1/2$. More specifically, we prove that for all $\epsilon\ge 1/2$ and sufficiently large $n$, there is an absolute constant $c>0$ such that $ \chiS\left(n,\binom{n}{2}-\lfloor n^{2-\epsilon}\rfloor,P_4\right)>c n^2. $

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Zixuan Yang. 2026-07-07. On the maximal anti-Ramsey problem of Burr, Erd\H{o}s, Graham, and S\'{o}s for $P_4$. https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.05896

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