arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Alexandr Kostochka.
An interesting generalization of list coloring is so called DP-coloring (named after Dvořák and Postle). We study $(i,j)$-defective DP-colorings of simple graphs. Define $g_{DP}(i,j,n)$ to be the minimum number of edges in an $n$-vertex DP-$(i,j)$-critical graph. We prove sharp bounds on $g_{DP}(i,j,n)$ for $i=1,2$ and $j\geq 2i$ for infinitely many $n$.
The famous Dirac's Theorem gives an exact bound on the minimum degree of an $n$-vertex graph guaranteeing the existence of a hamiltonian cycle. We prove exact bounds of similar type for hamiltonian Berge cycles in $r$-uniform, $n$-vertex hypergraphs for all $3\leq r< n$. The bounds are different for $r<n/2$ and $r\geq n/2$. We also give bounds on the minimum degree guaranteeing existence of Berge cycles of length at least $k$ in such hypergraphs; the bounds are exact for all $k\geq n/2$.
Let $F$ and $H$ be $k$-uniform hypergraphs. We say $H$ is $F$-saturated if $H$ does not contain a subgraph isomorphic to $F$, but $H+e$ does for any hyperedge $e\not\in E(H)$. The saturation number of $F$, denoted $\mathrm{sat}_k(n,F)$, is the minimum number of edges in a $F$-saturated $k$-uniform hypergraph $H$ on $n$ vertices. Let $C_3^{(3)}$ denote the $3$-uniform loose cycle on $3$ edges. In this work, we prove that \[ \left(\frac{4}3+o(1)\right)n\leq \mathrm{sat}_3(n,C_3^{(3)})\leq \frac{3}2n+O(1). \] This is the first non-trivial result on the saturation number for a fixed short hypergraph cycle.
A matching $M$ in a graph $G$ is connected if all the edges of $M$ are in the same component of $G$. Following Łuczak,there have been many results using the existence of large connected matchings in cluster graphs with respect to regular partitions of large graphs to show the existence of long paths and other structures in these graphs. We prove exact Ramsey-type bounds on the sizes of monochromatic connected matchings in $2$-edge-colored multipartite graphs. In addition, we prove a stability theorem for such matchings.
A graph $G$ arrows a graph $H$ if in every $2$-edge-coloring of $G$ there exists a monochromatic copy of $H$. Schelp had the idea that if the complete graph $K_n$ arrows a small graph $H$, then every "dense" subgraph of $K_n$ also arrows $H$, and he outlined some problems in this direction. Our main result is in this spirit. We prove that for every sufficiently large $n$, if $n = 3t+r$ where $r \in \{0,1,2\}$ and $G$ is an $n$-vertex graph with $δ(G) \ge (3n-1)/4$, then for every $2$-edge-coloring of $G$, either there are cycles of every length $\{3, 4, 5, \dots, 2t+r\}$ of the same color, or there are cycles of every even length $\{4, 6, 8, \dots, 2t+2\}$ of the same color. Our result is tight in the sense that no longer cycles (of length $>2t+r$) can be guaranteed and the minimum degree condition cannot be reduced. It also implies the conjecture of Schelp that for every sufficiently large $n$, every $(3t-1)$-vertex graph $G$ with minimum degree larger than $3|V(G)|/4$ arrows the path $P_{2n}$ with $2n$ vertices. Moreover, it implies for sufficiently large $n$ the conjecture by Benevides, Łuczak, Scott, Skokan and White that for $n=3t+r$ where $r \in \{0,1,2\}$ and every $n$-vertex graph $G$ with $δ(G) \ge 3n/4$, in each $2$-edge-coloring of $G$ there exists a monochromatic cycle of length at least $2t+r$.
For $1\leq s_1 \le s_2 \le \ldots \le s_k$ and a graph $G$, a packing $(s_1, s_2, \ldots, s_k)$-coloring of $G$ is a partition of $V(G)$ into sets $V_1, V_2, \ldots, V_k$ such that, for each $1\leq i \leq k$, the distance between any two distinct $x,y\in V_i$ is at least $s_i + 1$. The packing chromatic number, $χ_p(G)$, of a graph $G$ is the smallest $k$ such that $G$ has a packing $(1,2, \ldots, k)$-coloring. It is known that there are trees of maximum degree 4 and subcubic graphs $G$ with arbitrarily large $χ_p(G)$. Recently, there was a series of papers on packing $(s_1, s_2, \ldots, s_k)$-colorings of subcubic graphs in various classes. We show that every $2$-connected subcubic outerplanar graph has a packing $(1,1,2)$-coloring and every subcubic outerplanar graph is packing $(1,1,2,4)$-colorable. Our results are sharp in the sense that there are $2$-connected subcubic outerplanar graphs that are not packing $(1,1,3)$-colorable and there are subcubic outerplanar graphs that are not packing $(1,1,2,5)$-colorable. We also show subcubic outerplanar graphs that are not packing $(1,2,2,4)$-colorable and not packing $(1,1,3,4)$-colorable.
A coloring of edges of a graph $G$ is injective if for any two distinct edges $e_1$ and $e_2$, the colors of $e_1$ and $e_2$ are distinct if they are at distance $1$ in $G$ or in a common triangle. Naturally, the injective chromatic index of $G$, $χ'_{inj}(G)$, is the minimum number of colors needed for an injective edge-coloring of $G$. We study how large can be the injective chromatic index of $G$ in terms of maximum degree of $G$ when we have restrictions on girth and/or chromatic number of $G$. We also compare our bounds with analogous bounds on the strong chromatic index.
Classical problems in hypergraph coloring theory are to estimate the minimum number of edges, $m_2(r)$ (respectively, $m^\ast_2(r)$), in a non-$2$-colorable $r$-uniform (respectively, $r$-uniform and simple) hypergraph. The best currently known bounds are \[c \cdot \sqrt{r/\log r} \cdot 2^r \,\leqslant\, m_2(r) \,\leqslant\, C \cdot r^2 \cdot 2^r \qquad \text{and} \qquad c' \cdot r^{-\varepsilon} \cdot 4^r \,\leqslant\, m_2^\ast(r) \,\leqslant\, C' \cdot r^4 \cdot 4^r,\] for any fixed $\varepsilon > 0$ and some $c$, $c'$, $C$, $C' > 0$ (where $c'$ may depend on $\varepsilon$). In this paper we consider the same problems in the context of DP-coloring (also known as correspondence coloring), which is a generalization of list coloring introduced by Dvořák and Postle and related to local conflict coloring studied independently by Fraigniaud, Heinrich, and Kosowski. Let $\tilde{m}_2(r)$ (respectively, $\tilde{m}^\ast_2(r)$) denote the minimum number of edges in a non-$2$-DP-colorable $r$-uniform (respectively, $r$-uniform and simple) hypergraph. By definition, $\tilde{m}_2(r) \leqslant m_2(r)$ and $\tilde{m}^\ast_2(r)\leqslant m^\ast_2(r)$. While the proof of the bound $m^\ast_2(r) = Ω( r^{-3} 4^r)$ due to Erdős and Lovász also works for $\tilde{m}^\ast_2(r)$, we show that the trivial lower bound $\tilde{m}_2(r) \geqslant 2^{r-1}$ is asymptotically tight, i.e., $\tilde{m}_2(r) \leqslant (1 + o(1))2^{r-1}$. On the other hand, when $r \geqslant 2$ is even, we prove that the lower bound $\tilde{m}_2(r) \geqslant 2^{r-1}$ is not sharp, i.e., $\tilde{m}_2(r) \geqslant 2^{r-1}+1$. Whether this result holds for any odd values of $r$ remains an open problem. Nevertheless, we conjecture that the difference $\tilde{m}_2(r) - 2^{r-1}$ can be arbitrarily large.
A hypergraph $\mathcal H$ is super-pancyclic if for each $A \subseteq V(\mathcal H)$ with $|A| \geq 3$, $\mathcal H$ contains a Berge cycle with base vertex set $A$. We present two natural necessary conditions for a hypergraph to be super-pancyclic, and show that in several classes of hypergraphs these necessary conditions are also sufficient for this. In particular, they are sufficient for every hypergraph $\mathcal H$ with $ δ(\mathcal H)\geq \max\{|V(\mathcal H)|, \frac{|E(\mathcal H)|+10}{4}\}$. We also consider super-cyclic bipartite graphs: those are $(X,Y)$-bigraphs $G$ such that for each $A \subseteq X$ with $|A| \geq 3$, $G$ has a cycle $C_A$ such that $V(C_A)\cap X=A$. Such graphs are incidence graphs of super-pancyclic hypergraphs, and our proofs use the language of such graphs.
DP-coloring (also known as correspondence coloring) is a generalization of list coloring developed recently by Dvořák and Postle. We introduce and study $(i,j)$-defective DP-colorings of simple graphs. Let $g_{DP}(i,j,n)$ be the minimum number of edges in an $n$-vertex DP-$(i,j)$-critical graph. In this paper we determine sharp bound on $g_{DP}(i,j,n)$ for each $i\geq3$ and $j\geq 2i+1$ for infinitely many $n$.
In the language of hypergraphs, our main result is a Dirac-type bound: we prove that every $3$-connected hypergraph $H$ with $ δ(H)\geq \max\{|V(H)|, \frac{|E(H)|+10}{4}\}$ has a hamiltonian Berge cycle. This is sharp and refines a conjecture by Jackson from 1981 (in the language of bipartite graphs). Our proofs are in the language of bipartite graphs, since the incidence graph of each hypergraph is bipartite.
An {\em ordered $r$-graph} is an $r$-uniform hypergraph whose vertex set is linearly ordered. Given $2\leq k\leq r$, an ordered $r$-graph $H$ is {\em interval} $k$-{\em partite} if there exist at least $k$ disjoint intervals in the ordering such that every edge of $H$ has nonempty intersection with each of the intervals and is contained in their union. Our main result implies that for each $α> k - 1$ and $d>0$, every $n$-vertex ordered $r$-graph with $d \,n^α$ edges has for some $m\leq n$ an $m$-vertex interval $k$-partite subgraph with $Ω(d\, m^α)$ edges. This is an extension to ordered $r$-graphs of the observation by Erd\H os and Kleitman that every $r$-graph contains an $r$-partite subgraph with a constant proportion of the edges. The restriction $α> k-1$ is sharp. We also present applications of the main result to several extremal problems for ordered hypergraphs.
In this paper, we prove a theorem on tight paths in convex geometric hypergraphs, which is asymptotically sharp in infinitely many cases. Our geometric theorem is a common generalization of early results of Hopf and Pannwitz [12], Sutherland [19], Kupitz and Perles [16] for convex geometric graphs, as well as the classical Erdős-Gallai Theorem [6] for graphs. As a consequence, we obtain the first substantial improvement on the Turán problem for tight paths in uniform hypergraphs.
In this paper we present a novel approach in extremal set theory which may be viewed as an asymmetric version of Katona's permutation method. We use it to find more Turán numbers of hypergraphs in the Erdős--Ko--Rado range. An $(a,b)$-path $P$ of length $2k-1$ consists of $2k-1$ sets of size $r=a+b$ as follows. Take $k$ pairwise disjoint $a$-element sets $A_0, A_2, \dots, A_{2k-2}$ and other $k$ pairwise disjoint $b$-element sets $B_1, B_3, \dots, B_{2k-1}$ and order them linearly as $A_0, B_1, A_2, B_3, A_4\dots$. Define the (hyper)edges of $P_{2k-1}(a,b)$ as the sets of the form $A_i\cup B_{i+1}$ and $B_j\cup A_{j+1}$. The members of $P$ can be represented as $r$-element intervals of the $ak+bk$ element underlying set. Our main result is about hypergraphs that are blowups of trees, and implies that for fixed $k,a,b$, as $n\to \infty$ \[ {\rm ex}_r(n,P_{2k-1}(a,b)) = (k - 1){n \choose r - 1} + o(n^{r - 1}).\] This generalizes the Erdős--Gallai theorem for graphs which is the case of $a=b=1$. We also determine the asymptotics when $a+b$ is even; the remaining cases are still open.
We consider two extremal problems for set systems without long Berge cycles. First we give Dirac-type minimum degree conditions that force long Berge cycles. Next we give an upper bound for the number of hyperedges in a hypergraph with bounded circumference. Both results are best possible in infinitely many cases.
Let $D=(V,A)$ be a digraph. A vertex set $K\subseteq V$ is a quasi-kernel of $D$ if $K$ is an independent set in $D$ and for every vertex $v\in V\setminus K$, $v$ is at most distance 2 from $K$. In 1974, Chvátal and Lovász proved that every digraph has a quasi-kernel. P. L. Erdős and L. A. Székely in 1976 conjectured that if every vertex of $D$ has a positive indegree, then $D$ has a quasi-kernel of size at most $|V|/2$. This conjecture is only confirmed for narrow classes of digraphs, such as semicomplete multipartite, quasi-transitive, or locally demicomplete digraphs. In this note, we state a similar conjecture for all digraphs, show that the two conjectures are equivalent, and prove that both conjectures hold for a class of digraphs containing all orientations of 4-colorable graphs (in particular, of all planar graphs).
DP-coloring (also known as correspondence coloring) is a generalization of list coloring developed recently by Dvorak and Postle. We introduce and study $(i,j)$-defective DP-colorings of multigraphs. We concentrate on sparse multigraphs and consider $f_{DP}(i,j,n)$ --- the minimum number of edges that may have an $n$-vertex $(i,j)$-critical multigraph, that is, a multigraph $G$ that has no $(i,j)$-defective DP-coloring but whose every proper subgraph has such a coloring. For every $i$ and $j$, we find linear lower bounds on $f_{DP}(i,j,n)$ that are exact for infinitely many $n$.
An ordered hypergraph is a hypergraph whose vertex set is linearly ordered, and a convex geometric hypergraph is a hypergraph whose vertex set is cyclically ordered. Extremal problems for ordered and convex geometric graphs have a rich history with applications to a variety of problems in combinatorial geometry. In this paper, we consider analogous extremal problems for uniform hypergraphs, and determine the order of magnitude of the extremal function for various ordered and convex geometric paths and matchings. Our results generalize earlier works of Braß-Károlyi-Valtr, Capoyleas-Pach and Aronov-Dujmovič-Morin-Ooms-da Silveira. We also provide a new generalization of the Erd\H os-Ko-Rado theorem in the ordered setting.