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Abhishek Methuku

Publications and source records attributed to Abhishek Methuku.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2026

Random independent sets in uncrowded hypergraphs

Given any fixed integer $k \ge 2$ and sufficiently large $d$, we show that the largest possible fractional chromatic number of a $k$-uniform $d$-degenerate uncrowded hypergraph $H$ (i.e., with girth at least $5$) satisfies \[ χ_f(H) = (1 + o_d(1)) \left((k-1)\,\frac{d}{\log d}\right)^{\frac{1}{k-1}}. \] In fact, we prove that this holds for $k$-uniform $d$-degenerate hypergraphs of girth at least $g$, for any given $g \ge 5$. As a corollary, we obtain improved bounds on the fractional chromatic number of $d$-degenerate linear hypergraphs. This work builds upon a recent result by Allen, Dhawan, and Noel, extending it from graphs to hypergraphs. In addition to overcoming the new difficulties that arise in the hypergraph setting, our approach yields a simpler proof even in the original graph case. Our proof of the upper bound uses a simpler iterative procedure for sampling independent sets. We also establish bounds for fractional colorings with local demands, a framework introduced by Kelly and Postle, verifying a recent conjecture of Yu and Zhang. As a consequence, we obtain a degree-sequence bound on the independence number of uncrowded hypergraphs with a leading constant matching the shattering threshold. For the matching lower bound, we use a hypergraph variant of the uniform attachment model and harmonic vertex weights to bound the fractional chromatic number via linear programming duality, then remove all short cycles by deleting vertices of negligible total weight. We also replace the Catalan-number argument used in the graph case with a matrix-norm estimate, simplifying the analysis.

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arXiv2026

Counting hypergraphs without linear cycles of fixed length

Let $C_{k}^{(r)}$ be the $r$-uniform linear cycle on $k$ hyperedges. An $r$-graph is $C_{k}^{(r)}$-free if it contains no copy of $C_{k}^{(r)}$. Let $\operatorname{ex}_{r}(n,C_{k}^{(r)})$ denote the maximum number of hyperedges in an $n$-vertex $C_{k}^{(r)}$-free $r$-graph. Balogh, Narayanan and Skokan asked whether, for every pair of integers $r,k\ge 3$, the number of $C_k^{(r)}$-free $r$-graphs on $n$ labelled vertices is \[ 2^{(1+o(1))\operatorname{ex}_{r}(n,C_{k}^{(r)})}. \] While the analogous statement is known to fail for graphs ($r=2$), by a construction of Morris and Saxton, the general question remained open for hypergraphs. Very recently, Jiang and Longbrake answered the question affirmatively when $r\geq5$. In this paper, we completely resolve the problem by proving that the answer is affirmative for every pair of integers $r,k\geq3$. When $(r,k)\neq(3,3)$, we establish balanced supersaturation results for linear cycles and combine them with the hypergraph container method. For $(r,k)=(3,3)$, we instead decompose $3$-graphs according to their pair-codegrees, encode the subhypergraph formed by the hyperedges that contain a large codegree pair as a directed graph, and apply a multicolour entropy theorem.

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arXiv2026

A nearly linear bound for the Lovász conjecture

The celebrated conjecture of Lovász from 1969 asks whether every connected vertex-transitive graph has a Hamiltonian path. Bucić, Christoph, Pokrovskiy and Steiner recently proved that every such graph on $n$ vertices contains a cycle of length $n^{2/3-o(1)}$. In this paper, we improve this bound to $n^{1-o(1)}$. Our proof uses a structure theorem of Tessera and Tointon to first obtain a partition of the vertex set into sets of small diameter in the original graph. When the parts are large, we repeatedly traverse a spanning tree of maximum degree at most three in the quotient graph, and use the Lovász local lemma to join random short paths along this traversal and extract a long path in the original graph. When the parts are small, we apply Babai's contraction lemma to reduce the problem to finding a long path in a connected Cayley graph of a nilpotent group with boundedly many generators and bounded nilpotency class, and then show that such a Cayley graph on $m$ vertices contains a path on $m^{1-o(1)}$ vertices.

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arXiv2026

List coloring uncrowded hypergraphs at the shattering threshold

Improving an earlier bound of Frieze and Mubayi, Iliopoulos showed that any $k$-uniform uncrowded hypergraph of maximum degree $Δ$ has list chromatic number at most $(1+o(1))(k-1)\Big(\fracΔ{\logΔ}\Big)^{\frac{1}{k-1}}$. Determining the optimal leading constant in this bound remains a major open problem. A natural target for the constant, suggested by the coupon-collector heuristic, is $(k-1)^{\frac{1}{k-1}}$, which also arises independently as the shattering threshold for coloring and finding large independent sets in sparse random hypergraphs. We show that uncrowded hypergraphs attain this threshold: for $k \ge 2$, every $k$-uniform uncrowded hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$ of maximum degree at most $Δ$ satisfies $$χ_\ell(\mathcal{H})\le(1+o(1))\Big((k-1)\fracΔ{\logΔ}\Big)^{\frac{1}{k-1}}.$$ This matches the coupon-collector heuristic, and establishes a 2019 conjecture of Molloy for uncrowded hypergraphs. As a consequence, we show that every $k$-uniform linear hypergraph of maximum degree at most $Δ$ has chromatic number at most $c_k\Big(\fracΔ{\log Δ}\Big)^{\frac{1}{k-1}}$ with $c_k=1-o_k(1)$, resolving, in a stronger form, a recent conjecture of Verstraëte and Wilson on the independence number of linear hypergraphs. Our techniques yield the first palette sparsification result for hypergraph coloring using $o(Δ^{\frac{1}{k-1}})$ colors per vertex. Specifically, for an uncrowded $k$-graph $\mathcal{H}$ and $q=Θ\Big({\Big(\fracΔ{γ\logΔ}\Big)^{\frac{1}{k-1}}}\Big)$, sampling $Θ(Δ^{\fracγ{k-1}})$ colors per vertex suffices to obtain a proper $q$-coloring of $\mathcal{H}$ w.h.p. As an algorithmic consequence, we obtain a single-pass streaming algorithm using $O\big(n^{1+o(1)}\big)$ space for uncrowded $k$-graphs, and, via hypergraph partitioning, for linear hypergraphs as well.

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arXiv2026

Long Directed Cycles in Vertex-Transitive Digraphs

The search for Hamiltonian cycles in vertex-transitive graphs and digraphs is a classical problem at the interface of graph theory and group theory. In the undirected setting, this goes back to the well-known conjectures of Lovász and Thomassen concerning Hamiltonian paths and cycles in connected vertex-transitive graphs. Dating back to Rankin's 1946 work, the directed analogue has an even longer history, linking the search for long cycles to classical group-rearrangement problems. Trotter and Erdős showed in 1978 that connected vertex-transitive digraphs need not be Hamiltonian. In light of this result, Alspach asked in 1981 whether there exist connected vertex-transitive digraphs whose longest directed cycle misses arbitrarily many vertices. This question was only recently resolved by Bucić, Hendrey, Mohar, Steiner and Yepremyan, who constructed connected vertex-transitive digraphs on $n$ vertices whose longest directed cycle omits $(1-o(1))\log n$ vertices. They conjectured that the number of omitted vertices can grow linearly with $n$, remarking that it would already be interesting to improve their logarithmic lower bound to a polynomial bound. In this paper, we confirm their conjecture in a strong form by constructing infinitely many connected vertex-transitive digraphs on $n$ vertices whose longest directed cycle omits at least $n/12$ vertices. In the same work, Bucić, Hendrey, Mohar, Steiner and Yepremyan also proved that every connected vertex-transitive digraph on $n$ vertices contains a directed cycle of length $Ω(n^{1/3})$, giving the first lower bound for this problem that grows with $n$. We improve this to $Ω(\sqrt n)$, matching the order of Babai's classical theorem from 1979 for undirected vertex-transitive graphs.

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arXiv2026

Packing subgraphs in regular graphs

An \emph{$H$-packing} in a graph $G$ is a collection of pairwise vertex-disjoint copies of $H$ in $G$. We prove that for every $c > 0$ and every bipartite graph $H$, any $\lfloor cn \rfloor$-regular graph $G$ admits an $H$-packing that covers all but a constant number of vertices. This resolves a problem posed by Kühn and Osthus in 2005. Moreover, our result is essentially tight: the conclusion fails if $G$ is not both regular and sufficiently dense, it is in general not possible to guarantee covering all vertices of $G$ by an $H$-packing, and if $H$ is non-bipartite then $G$ need not contain any copies of $H$. We also prove that for all $c > 0$, integers $t \geq 2$, and sufficiently large $n$, all the vertices of every $\lfloor cn \rfloor$-regular graph can be covered by vertex-disjoint subdivisions of $K_t$. This resolves another problem of Kühn and Osthus from 2005, which goes back to a conjecture of Verstraëte from 2002. Our proofs combine novel methods for balancing expanders and super-regular subgraphs with a number of powerful techniques including properties of robust expanders, regularity lemma, and blow-up lemma.

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arXiv2026

Nearly Hamilton cycles in sublinear expanders, and applications

We develop novel methods for constructing nearly Hamilton cycles in sublinear expanders with good regularity properties, as well as new techniques for finding such expanders in general graphs. These methods are of independent interest due to their potential for various applications to embedding problems in sparse graphs. In particular, using these tools, we make substantial progress towards a twenty-year-old conjecture of Verstraëte, which asserts that for any given graph $F$, nearly all vertices of every $d$-regular graph $G$ can be covered by vertex-disjoint $F$-subdivisions. This significantly extends previous work on the conjecture by Kelmans, Mubayi and Sudakov, Alon, and Kühn and Osthus. Additionally, we present applications of our methods to two other problems.

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arXiv2025

Independent sets and colorings of $K_{t,t,t}$-free graphs

Alon, Krivelevich, and Sudakov conjectured in 1999 that every $F$-free graph of maximum degree at most $Δ$ has chromatic number $O(Δ/ \log Δ)$. This was previously known only for almost bipartite graphs, that is, for subgraphs of $K_{1,t,t}$ (verified by Alon, Krivelevich, and Sudakov themselves), while most recent results were concerned with improving the leading constant factor in the case where $F$ is almost bipartite. We prove this conjecture for all $3$-colorable graphs $F$, i.e. subgraphs of $K_{t,t,t}$, representing the first progress toward the conjecture since it was posed. A closely related conjecture of Ajtai, Erdős, Komlós, and Szemerédi from 1981 asserts that for every graph $F$, every $n$-vertex $F$-free graph of average degree $d$ contains an independent set of size $Ω(n \log d / d)$. We prove this conjecture in a strong form for all 3-colorable graphs $F$. More precisely, we show that every $n$-vertex $K_{t,t,t}$-free graph of average degree $d$ contains an independent set of size at least $(1 - o(1)) n \log d / d$, matching Shearer's celebrated bound for triangle-free graphs (the case $t = 1$) and thereby yielding a substantial strengthening of it. Our proof combines a new variant of the Rödl nibble method for constructing independent sets with a Turán-type result on $K_{t,t,t}$-free graphs.

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arXiv2025

Regular subgraphs at every density

In 1975, Erdős and Sauer asked to estimate, for any constant $r$, the maximum number of edges an $n$-vertex graph can have without containing an $r$-regular subgraph. In a recent breakthrough, Janzer and Sudakov proved that any $n$-vertex graph with no $r$-regular subgraph has at most $C_r n \log \log n$ edges, matching an earlier lower bound by Pyber, Rödl and Szemerédi and thereby resolving the Erdős-Sauer problem up to a constant depending on $r$. We prove that every $n$-vertex graph without an $r$-regular subgraph has at most $Cr^2 n \log \log n$ edges. This bound is tight up to the value of $C$ for $n\geq n_0(r)$ and hence resolves the Erdős-Sauer problem up to an absolute constant. Moreover, we obtain similarly tight results for the whole range of possible values of $r$ (i.e., not just when $r$ is a constant), apart from a small error term at a transition point near $r\approx \log n$, where, perhaps surprisingly, the answer changes. More specifically, we show that every $n$-vertex graph with average degree at least $\min(Cr\log(n/r),Cr^2 \log\log n)$ contains an $r$-regular subgraph. The bound $Cr\log(n/r)$ is tight for $r\geq \log n$, while the bound $Cr^2 \log \log n$ is tight for $r<(\log n)^{1-Ω(1)}$. These results resolve a problem of Rödl and Wysocka from 1997 for almost all values of $r$. Among other tools, we develop a novel random process that efficiently finds a very nearly regular subgraph in any almost-regular graph. A key step in our proof uses this novel random process to show that every $K$-almost-regular graph with average degree $d$ contains an $r$-regular subgraph for some $r=Ω_K(d)$, which is of independent interest.

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arXiv2025

Toward Vu's conjecture

In 2002, Vu conjectured that graphs of maximum degree $Δ$ and maximum codegree at most $ζΔ$ have chromatic number at most $(ζ+o(1))Δ$. Despite its importance, the conjecture has remained widely open. The only direct progress so far has been obtained in the ``dense regime,'' when $ζ$ is close to $1$, by Hurley, de Verclos, and Kang. In this paper we provide the first progress in the sparse regime $ζ\ll 1$, the case of primary interest to Vu. We show that there exists $ζ_0 > 0$ such that for all $ζ\in [\log^{-32}Δ,ζ_0]$, the following holds: if $G$ is a graph with maximum degree $Δ$ and maximum codegree at most $ζΔ$, then $χ(G) \leq (ζ^{1/32} + o(1))Δ$. We derive this from a more general result that assumes only that the common neighborhood of any $s$ vertices is bounded rather than the codegrees of pairs of vertices. Our more general result also extends to the list coloring setting, which is of independent interest.

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arXiv2025

Power saving for the Brown-Erdős-Sós problem

Let $f(n, v, e)$ denote the maximum number of edges in a 3-uniform hypergraph on $n$ vertices which does not contain $v$ vertices spanning at least $e$ edges. A central problem in extremal combinatorics, famously posed by Brown, Erdős and Sós in 1973, asks whether $f(n, e+3, e)=o(n^2)$ for every $e \ge 3$. A classical result of Sárközy and Selkow states that $f(n, e+\lfloor \log_2 e\rfloor+2, e)=o(n^{2})$ for every $e \ge 3$. This bound was recently improved by Conlon, Gishboliner, Levanzov and Shapira. Motivated by applications to other problems, Gowers and Long made the striking conjecture that $f(n, e+4, e)=O(n^{2-\varepsilon})$ for some $\varepsilon=\varepsilon(e)>0$. Conlon, Gishboliner, Levanzov and Shapira, and later, Shapira and Tyomkyn reiterated the following approximate version of this problem. What is the smallest $d(e)$ for which $f(n, e+d(e), e)=O(n^{2-\varepsilon})$ for some $\varepsilon=\varepsilon(e)>0$? In this paper, we prove that for each $e\geq 3$ we have $f(n, e+\lfloor \log_2 e\rfloor +38, e)=O(n^{2-\varepsilon})$ for some $\varepsilon>0$. This shows that one can already obtain power saving near the Sárközy-Selkow bound at the cost of a small additive constant.

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arXiv2024

Tight bounds for intersection-reverse sequences, edge-ordered graphs and applications

In 2006, Marcus and Tardos proved that if $A^1,\dots,A^n$ are cyclic orders on some subsets of a set of $n$ symbols such that the common elements of any two distinct orders $A^i$ and $A^j$ appear in reversed cyclic order in $A^i$ and $A^j$, then $\sum_{i} |A^i|=O(n^{3/2}\log n)$. This result is tight up to the logarithmic factor and has since become an important tool in Discrete Geometry. We improve this to the optimal bound $O(n^{3/2})$. In fact, we show that if $A^1,\dots,A^n$ are linear orders on some subsets of a set of $n$ symbols such that no three symbols appear in the same order in any two distinct linear orders, then $\sum_{i} |A^i|=O(n^{3/2})$. Using this result, we resolve several open problems in Discrete Geometry and Extremal Graph Theory as follows. We prove that every $n$-vertex topological graph that does not contain a self-crossing four-cycle has $O(n^{3/2})$ edges. This resolves a problem of Marcus and Tardos from 2006. We also show that $n$ pseudo-circles in the plane can be cut into $O(n^{3/2})$ pseudo-segments, which, in turn, implies new bounds on point-circle incidences and on other geometric problems. Moreover, we prove that the edge-ordered Turán number of the four-cycle $C_4^{1243}$ is $Θ(n^{3/2})$. This answers a question of Gerbner, Methuku, Nagy, Pálvölgyi, Tardos and Vizer. Using different methods, we determine the largest possible extremal number that an edge-ordered forest of order chromatic number two can have. Kucheriya and Tardos showed that every such graph has extremal number at most $n2^{O(\sqrt{\log n})}$, and conjectured that this can be improved to $n(\log n)^{O(1)}$. We disprove their conjecture by showing that for every $C>0$, there exists an edge-ordered tree of order chromatic number two whose extremal number is $Ω(n 2^{C\sqrt{\log n}})$.

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arXiv2024

Solution to a problem of Erdős on the chromatic index of hypergraphs with bounded codegree

In 1977, Erdős asked the following question: for any integers $t,n \in \mathbb{N}$, if $G_1 , \dots , G_n$ are complete graphs such that each $G_i$ has at most $n$ vertices and every pair of them shares at most $t$ vertices, what is the largest possible chromatic number of the union $\bigcup_{i=1}^{n} G_i$? The equivalent dual formulation of this question asks for the largest chromatic index of an $n$-vertex hypergraph with maximum degree at most $n$ and maximum codegree at most $t$. For the case $t = 1$, Erdős, Faber, and Lovász famously conjectured that the answer is $n$, which was recently proved by the authors for all sufficiently large $n$. In this paper, we answer this question of Erdős for $t \geq 2$ in a strong sense, by proving that every $n$-vertex hypergraph with maximum degree at most $(1-o(1))tn$ and maximum codegree at most $t$ has chromatic index at most $tn$ for any $t,n \in \mathbb{N}$. Moreover, equality holds if and only if the hypergraph is a $t$-fold projective plane of order $k$, where $n = k^2 + k + 1$. Thus, for every $t \in \mathbb N$, this bound is best possible for infinitely many integers $n$. This result also holds for the list chromatic index.

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arXiv2024

New bounds on the size of Nearly Perfect Matchings in almost regular hypergraphs

Let $H$ be a $k$-uniform $D$-regular simple hypergraph on $N$ vertices. Based on an analysis of the Rödl nibble, Alon, Kim and Spencer (1997) proved that if $k \ge 3$, then $H$ contains a matching covering all but at most $ND^{-1/(k-1)+o(1)}$ vertices, and asked whether this bound is tight. In this paper we improve their bound by showing that for all $k > 3$, $H$ contains a matching covering all but at most $ND^{-1/(k-1)-η}$ vertices for some $η= Θ(k^{-3}) > 0$, when $N$ and $D$ are sufficiently large. Our approach consists of showing that the Rödl nibble process not only constructs a large matching but it also produces many well-distributed `augmenting stars' which can then be used to significantly improve the matching constructed by the Rödl nibble process. Based on this, we also improve the results of Kostochka and Rödl (1998) and Vu (2000) on the size of matchings in almost regular hypergraphs with small codegree. As a consequence, we improve the best known bounds on the size of large matchings in combinatorial designs with general parameters. Finally, we improve the bounds of Molloy and Reed (2000) on the chromatic index of hypergraphs with small codegree (which can be applied to improve the best known bounds on the chromatic index of Steiner triple systems and more general designs).

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arXiv2024

Edge-disjoint cycles with the same vertex set

In 1975, Erdős asked for the maximum number of edges that an $n$-vertex graph can have if it does not contain two edge-disjoint cycles on the same vertex set. It is known that Turán-type results can be used to prove an upper bound of $n^{3/2+o(1)}$. However, this approach cannot give an upper bound better than $Ω(n^{3/2})$. We show that, for any $k\geq 2$, every $n$-vertex graph with at least $n \cdot \mathrm{polylog}(n)$ edges contains $k$ pairwise edge-disjoint cycles with the same vertex set, resolving this old problem in a strong form up to a polylogarithmic factor. The well-known construction of Pyber, Rödl and Szemerédi of graphs without $4$-regular subgraphs shows that there are $n$-vertex graphs with $Ω(n\log \log n)$ edges which do not contain two cycles with the same vertex set, so the polylogarithmic term in our result cannot be completely removed. Our proof combines a variety of techniques including sublinear expanders, absorption and a novel tool for regularisation, which is of independent interest. Among other applications, this tool can be used to regularise an expander while still preserving certain key expansion properties.

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arXiv2024

Tight general bounds for the extremal numbers of 0-1 matrices

A zero-one matrix $M$ is said to contain another zero-one matrix $A$ if we can delete some rows and columns of $M$ and replace some $1$-entries with $0$-entries such that the resulting matrix is $A$. The extremal number of $A$, denoted $\operatorname{ex}(n,A)$, is the maximum number of $1$-entries that an $n\times n$ zero-one matrix can have without containing $A$. The systematic study of this function for various patterns $A$ goes back to the work of Füredi and Hajnal from 1992, and the field has many connections to other areas of mathematics and theoretical computer science. The problem has been particularly extensively studied for so-called acyclic matrices, but very little is known about the general case (that is, the case where $A$ is not necessarily acyclic). We prove the first asymptotically tight general result by showing that if $A$ has at most $t$ $1$-entries in every row, then $\operatorname{ex}(n,A)\leq n^{2-1/t+o(1)}$. This verifies a conjecture of Methuku and Tomon. Our result also provides the first tight general bound for the extremal number of vertex-ordered graphs with interval chromatic number $2$, generalizing a celebrated result of Füredi, and Alon, Krivelevich and Sudakov about the (unordered) extremal number of bipartite graphs with maximum degree $t$ in one of the vertex classes.

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arXiv2023

Rainbow subdivisions of cliques

We show that for every integer $m \ge 2$ and large $n$, every properly edge-coloured graph on $n$ vertices with at least $n (\log n)^{53}$ edges contains a rainbow subdivision of $K_m$. This is sharp up to a polylogarithmic factor. Our proof method exploits the connection between the mixing time of random walks and expansion in graphs.

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arXiv2023

The extremal number of cycles with all diagonals

In 1975, Erdős asked the following natural question: What is the maximum number of edges that an $n$-vertex graph can have without containing a cycle with all diagonals? Erdős observed that the upper bound $O(n^{5/3})$ holds since the complete bipartite graph $K_{3,3}$ can be viewed as a cycle of length six with all diagonals. In this paper, we resolve this old problem. We prove that there exists a constant $C$ such that every $n$-vertex with $Cn^{3/2}$ edges contains a cycle with all diagonals. Since any cycle with all diagonals contains cycles of length four, this bound is best possible using well-known constructions of graphs without a four-cycle based on finite geometry. Among other ideas, our proof involves a novel lemma about finding an `almost-spanning' robust expander which might be of independent interest.

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