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Alex Scott

Publications and source records attributed to Alex Scott.

At least 145 records · Page 8Linked to original sources
arXiv2018

Clustered Colouring in Minor-Closed Classes

The "clustered chromatic number" of a class of graphs is the minimum integer $k$ such that for some integer $c$ every graph in the class is $k$-colourable with monochromatic components of size at most $c$. We prove that for every graph $H$, the clustered chromatic number of the class of $H$-minor-free graphs is tied to the tree-depth of $H$. In particular, if $H$ is connected with tree-depth $t$ then every $H$-minor-free graph is $(2^{t+1}-4)$-colourable with monochromatic components of size at most $c(H)$. This provides the first evidence for a conjecture of Ossona de Mendez, Oum and Wood (2016) about defective colouring of $H$-minor-free graphs. If $t=3$ then we prove that 4 colours suffice, which is best possible. We also determine those minor-closed graph classes with clustered chromatic number 2. Finally, we develop a conjecture for the clustered chromatic number of an arbitrary minor-closed class.

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arXiv2018

Stability results for graphs with a critical edge

The classical stability theorem of Erdős and Simonovits states that, for any fixed graph with chromatic number $k+1 \ge 3$, the following holds: every $n$-vertex graph that is $H$-free and has within $o(n^2)$ of the maximal possible number of edges can be made into the $k$-partite Turán graph by adding and deleting $o(n^2)$ edges. In this paper, we prove sharper quantitative results for graphs $H$ with a critical edge, both for the Erdős-Simonovits Theorem (distance to the Turán graph) and for the closely related question of how close an $H$-free graph is to being $k$-partite. In many cases, these results are optimal to within a constant factor.

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arXiv2018

Induced subgraphs of graphs with large chromatic number. XIII. New brooms

Gyárfás and Sumner independently conjectured that for every tree $T$, the class of graphs not containing $T$ as an induced subgraph is $χ$-bounded, that is, the chromatic numbers of graphs in this class are bounded above by a function of their clique numbers. This remains open for general trees $T$, but has been proved for some particular trees. For $k\ge 1$, let us say a broom of length $k$ is a tree obtained from a $k$-edge path with ends $a,b$ by adding some number of leaves adjacent to $b$, and we call $a$ its handle. A tree obtained from brooms of lengths $k_1,...,k_n$ by identifying their handles is a $(k_1,...,k_n)$-multibroom. Kierstead and Penrice proved that every $(1,...,1)$-multibroom $T$ satisfies the Gyárfás-Sumner conjecture, and Kierstead and Zhu proved the same for $(2,...,2)$-multibrooms. In this paper give a common generalization: we prove that every $(1,...,1,2,...,2)$-multibroom satisfies the Gyárfás-Sumner conjecture.

math.CO↗
arXiv2018

How unproportional must a graph be?

Let $u_k(G,p)$ be the maximum over all $k$-vertex graphs $F$ of by how much the number of induced copies of $F$ in $G$ differs from its expectation in the binomial random graph with the same number of vertices as $G$ and with edge probability $p$. This may be viewed as a measure of how close $G$ is to being $p$-quasirandom. For a positive integer $n$ and $0<p<1$, let $D(n,p)$ be the distance from $p\binom{n}{2}$ to the nearest integer. Our main result is that, for fixed $k\ge 4$ and for $n$ large, the minimum of $u_k(G,p)$ over $n$-vertex graphs has order of magnitude $Θ\big(\max\{D(n,p), p(1-p)\} n^{k-2}\big)$ provided that $p(1-p)n^{1/2} \to \infty$.

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arXiv2018

Approximating the position of a hidden agent in a graph

A cat and mouse play a pursuit and evasion game on a connected graph $G$ with $n$ vertices. The mouse moves to vertices $m_1,m_2,\dots$ of $G$ where $m_i$ is in the closed neighbourhood of $m_{i-1}$ for $i\geq2$. The cat tests vertices $c_1,c_2,\dots$ of $G$ without restriction and is told whether the distance between $c_i$ and $m_i$ is at most the distance between $c_{i-1}$ and $m_{i-1}$. The mouse knows the cat's strategy, but the cat does not know the mouse's strategy. We will show that the cat can determine the position of the mouse up to distance $O(\sqrt{n})$ within finite time and that this bound is tight up to a constant factor. This disproves a conjecture of Dayanikli and Rautenbach.

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arXiv2018

Bad News for Chordal Partitions

Reed and Seymour [1998] asked whether every graph has a partition into induced connected non-empty bipartite subgraphs such that the quotient graph is chordal. If true, this would have significant ramifications for Hadwiger's Conjecture. We prove that the answer is `no'. In fact, we show that the answer is still `no' for several relaxations of the question.

math.CO↗
arXiv2018

Balancing sums of random vectors

We study a higher-dimensional 'balls-into-bins' problem. An infinite sequence of i.i.d. random vectors is revealed to us one vector at a time, and we are required to partition these vectors into a fixed number of bins in such a way as to keep the sums of the vectors in the different bins close together; how close can we keep these sums almost surely? This question, our primary focus in this paper, is closely related to the classical problem of partitioning a sequence of vectors into balanced subsequences, in addition to having applications to some problems in computer science.

math.PR↗
arXiv2018

Towards Erdos-Hajnal for graphs with no 5-hole

The Erdos-Hajnal conjecture says that for every graph $H$ there exists $c>0$ such that $\max(α(G),ω(G))\ge n^c$ for every $H$-free graph $G$ with $n$ vertices, and this is still open when $H=C_5$. Until now the best bound known on $\max(α(G),ω(G))$ for $C_5$-free graphs was the general bound of Erdos and Hajnal, that for all $H$, $\max(α(G),ω(G))\ge 2^{Ω(\sqrt{\log n })}$ if $G$ is $H$-free. We improve this when $H=C_5$ to $\max(α(G),ω(G))\ge 2^{Ω(\sqrt{\log n \log \log n})}.$

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arXiv2017

On the concentration of the chromatic number of random graphs

Let 0<p<1 be fixed. Shamir and Spencer proved in the 1980s that the chromatic number of a random graph in G(n,p) is concentrated in an interval of length about n^{1/2}. In this explanatory note, we give a proof of a result due due Noga Alon, showing that the chromatic number is concentrated in an interval of length about n^{1/2}/log n.

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arXiv2017

A note on intersecting hypergraphs with large cover number

We give a construction of r-partite r-uniform intersecting hypergraphs with cover number at least r-4 for all but finitely many r. This answers a question of Abu-Khazneh, Barat, Pokrovskiy and Szabo, and shows that a long-standing unsolved conjecture due to Ryser is close to being best possible for every value of r.

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arXiv2017

Supersaturation in Posets and Applications Involving the Container Method

We consider 'supersaturation' problems in partially ordered sets (posets) of the following form. Given a finite poset $P$ and an integer $m$ greater than the cardinality of the largest antichain in $P$, what is the minimum number of comparable pairs in a subset of $P$ of cardinality $m$? We provide a framework for obtaining lower bounds on this quantity based on counting comparable pairs relative to a random chain and apply this framework to obtain supersaturation results for three classical posets: the boolean lattice, the collection of subspaces of $\mathbb{F}_q^n$ ordered by set inclusion and the set of divisors of the square of a square-free integer under the 'divides' relation. The bound that we obtain for the boolean lattice can be viewed as an approximate version of a known theorem of Kleitman. In addition, we apply our supersaturation results to obtain (a) upper bounds on the number of antichains in these posets and (b) asymptotic bounds on the cardinality of the largest antichain in $p$-random subsets of these posets which hold with high probability (for $p$ in a certain range). The proofs of these results rely on a 'container-type' lemma for posets which generalises a result of Balogh, Mycroft and Treglown. We also state a number of open problems regarding supersaturation in posets and counting antichains.

math.CO↗
arXiv2017

Induced subgraphs of graphs with large chromatic number. IX. Rainbow paths

We prove that for all nonnegative integers k,s there exists c with the following property. Let G be a graph with clique number at most k and chromatic number more than c. Then for every vertex-colouring (not necessarily optimal) of G, some induced subgraph of G is an s-vertex path, and all its vertices have different colours. This extends a recent result of Gyarfas and Sarkozy, who proved the same (when k=2) for graphs G with girth at least five.

math.CO↗
arXiv2017

Maximising the number of induced cycles in a graph

We determine the maximum number of induced cycles that can be contained in a graph on $n\ge n_0$ vertices, and show that there is a unique graph that achieves this maximum. This answers a question of Tuza. We also determine the maximum number of odd or even cycles that can be contained in a graph on $n\ge n_0$ vertices and characterise the extremal graphs. This resolves a conjecture of Chvátal and Tuza from 1988.

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arXiv2016

Disjoint induced subgraphs of the same order and size

For a graph $G$, let $f(G)$ be the largest integer $k$ for which there exist two vertex-disjoint induced subgraphs of $G$ each on $k$ vertices, both inducing the same number of edges. We prove that $f(G) \ge n/2 - o(n)$ for every graph $G$ on $n$ vertices. This answers a question of Caro and Yuster.

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arXiv2016

On lower bounds for the matching number of subcubic graphs

We give a complete description of the set of triples (a,b,c) of real numbers with the following property. There exists a constant K such that a n_3 + b n_2 + c n_1 - K is a lower bound for the matching number of every connected subcubic graph G, where n_i denotes the number of vertices of degree i for each i.

math.CO↗
arXiv2016

Random graphs from a block-stable class

A class of graphs is called block-stable when a graph is in the class if and only if each of its blocks is. We show that, as for trees, for most $n$-vertex graphs in such a class, each vertex is in at most $(1+o(1)) \log n / \log\log n$ blocks, and each path passes through at most $5 (n \log n)^{1/2}$ blocks. These results extend to `weakly block-stable' classes of graphs.

math.CO↗
arXiv2016

Uniform multicommodity flow in the hypercube with random edge capacities

We give two results for multicommodity flows in the $d$-dimensional hypercube ${Q}^d$ with independent random edge capacities distributed like $C$ where $\Pr[C>0]>1/2$. Firstly, with high probability as $d \rightarrow \infty$, the network can support simultaneous multicommodity flows of volume close to $E[C]$ between all antipodal vertex pairs. Secondly, with high probability, the network can support simultaneous multicommodity flows of volume close to $2^{1-d} E[C]$ between all vertex pairs. Both results are best possible.

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