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Balázs Patkós

Publications and source records attributed to Balázs Patkós.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2024

On a generalization of a result of Kleitman

A classical result of Kleitman determines the maximum number $f(n,s)$ of subsets in a family $\mathcal{F}\subseteq 2^{[n]}$ of sets that do not contain distinct sets $F_1,F_2,\dots,F_s$ that are pairwise disjoint in the case $n\equiv 0,-1$ (mod $s$). Katona and Nagy determined the maximum size of a family of subsets of an $n$-element set that does not contain $A_1,A_2,\dots,A_t,B_1,B_2,\dots,B_t$ with $\bigcup_{i=1}^t A_i$ and $\bigcup_{i=1}^t B_i$ being disjoint. In this paper, we consider the problem of finding the maximum number $vex(n,K_{s\times t})$ in a family $\mathcal{F}\subseteq 2^{[n]}$ without sets $F^1_1,\dots,F^1_t,\dots,F^s_1,\dots,F^s_t$ such that $G_j=\bigcup_{i=1}^tF^j_i$ $j=1,2,\dots,s$ are pairwise disjoint. We determine the asymptotics of $2^n-vex(n,K_{s\times t})$ if $n\equiv -1$ (mod $s$) for all $t$, and if $n\equiv 0$ (mod $s$), $t\ge 3$ and show that in this latter case the asymptotics of the $t=2$ subcase is different from both the $t=1$ and $t\ge 3$ subcases.

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arXiv2024

Query complexity of Boolean functions on the middle slice of the cube

We study the query complexity on slices of Boolean functions. Among other results we show that there exists a Boolean function for which we need to query all but 7 input bits to compute its value, even if we know beforehand that the number of 0's and 1's in the input are the same, i.e., when our input is from the middle slice. This answers a question of Byramji. Our proof is non-constructive, but we also propose a concrete candidate function that might have the above property. Our results are related to certain natural discrepancy type questions that, somewhat surprisingly, have not been studied before.

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arXiv2024

A note on vertex Turán problems in the Kneser cube

The Kneser cube $Kn_n$ has vertex set $2^{[n]}$ and two vertices $F,F'$ are joined by an edge if and only if $F\cap F'=\emptyset$. For a fixed graph $G$, we are interested in the most number $vex(n,G)$ of vertices of $Kn_n$ that span a $G$-free subgraph in $Kn_n$. We show that the asymptotics of $vex(n,G)$ is $(1+o(1))2^{n-1}$ for bipartite $G$ and $(1-o(1))2^n$ for graphs with chromatic number at least 3. We also obtain results on the order of magnitude of $2^{n-1}-vex(n,G)$ and $2^n-vex(n,G)$ in these two cases. In the case of bipartite $G$, we relate this problem to instances of the forbidden subposet problem.

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arXiv2024

Edge mappings of graphs: Turán type parameters

In this paper, we address problems related to parameters concerning edge mappings of graphs. The quantity $h(n,G)$ is defined to be the maximum number of edges in an $n$-vertex graph $H$ such that there exists a mapping $f: E(H)\rightarrow E(H)$ with $f(e)\neq e$ for all $e\in E$ and further in all copies $G'$ of $G$ in $H$ there exists $e\in E(G')$ with $f(e)\in E(G')$. Among other results, we determine $h(n, G)$ when $G$ is a matching and $n$ is large enough. As a related concept, we say that $H$ is unavoidable for $G$ if for any mapping $f: E(H)\rightarrow E(H)$ with $f(e)\neq e$ there exists a copy $G'$ of $G$ in $H$ such that $f(e)\notin E(G')$ for all $e\in E(G)$. The set of minimal unavoidable graphs for $G$ is denoted by $\mathcal{M}(G)$. We prove that if $F$ is a forest, then $\mathcal{M}(F)$ is finite if and only if $F$ is a matching, and we conjecture that for all non-forest graphs $G$, the set $\mathcal{M}(G)$ is infinite. Several other parameters are defined with basic results proved. Lots of open problems remain.

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arXiv2023

On some extremal and probabilistic questions for tree posets

Given two posets $P,Q$ we say that $Q$ is $P$-free if $Q$ does not contain a copy of $P$. The size of the largest $P$-free family in $2^{[n]}$, denoted by $La(n,P)$, has been extensively studied since the 1980s. We consider several related problems. Indeed, for posets $P$ whose Hasse diagrams are trees and have radius at most $2$, we prove that there are $2^{(1+o(1))La(n,P)}$ $P$-free families in $2^{[n]}$, thereby confirming a conjecture of Gerbner, Nagy, Patkós and Vizer [Electronic Journal of Combinatorics, 2021] in these cases. For such $P$ we also resolve the random version of the $P$-free problem, thus generalising the random version of Sperner's theorem due to Balogh, Mycroft and Treglown [Journal of Combinatorial Theory Series A, 2014], and Collares Neto and Morris [Random Structures and Algorithms, 2016]. Additionally, we make a general conjecture that, roughly speaking, asserts that subfamilies of $2^{[n]}$ of size sufficiently above $La(n,P)$ robustly contain $P$, for any poset $P$ whose Hasse diagram is a tree.

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arXiv2023

Counting Connected Partitions of Graphs

Motivated by the theorem of Gy\H ori and Lovász, we consider the following problem. For a connected graph $G$ on $n$ vertices and $m$ edges determine the number $P(G,k)$ of unordered solutions of positive integers $\sum_{i=1}^k m_i = m$ such that every $m_i$ is realized by a connected subgraph $H_i$ of $G$ with $m_i$ edges such that $\cup_{i=1}^kE(H_i)=E(G)$. We also consider the vertex-partition analogue. We prove various lower bounds on $P(G,k)$ as a function of the number $n$ of vertices in $G$, as a function of the average degree $d$ of $G$, and also as the size $\mathrm{CMC}_r(G)$ of $r$-partite connected maximum cuts of $G$. Those three lower bounds are tight up to a multiplicative constant. We also prove that the number $π(G,k)$ of unordered $k$-tuples with $\sum_{i=1}^kn_i=n$, that are realizable by vertex partitions into $k$ connected parts of respective sizes $n_1,n_2,\dots,n_k$, is $Ω(d^{k-1})$.

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arXiv2023

The Constructor-Blocker Game

We study the following game version of the generalized graph Turán problem. For two fixed graphs $F$ and $H$, two players, Constructor and Blocker, alternately claim unclaimed edges of the complete graph $K_n$. Constructor can only claim edges so that he never claims all edges of any copy of $F$, i.e. his graph must remain $F$-free, while Blocker can claim unclaimed edges without restrictions. The game ends when Constructor cannot claim further edges or when all edges have been claimed. The score of the game is the number of copies of $H$ with all edges claimed by Constructor. Constructor's aim is to maximize the score, while Blocker tries to keep the score as low as possible. We denote by $g(n,H,F)$ the score of the game when both players play optimally and Constructor starts the game. In this paper, we obtain the exact value of $g(n,H,F)$ when both $F$ and $H$ are stars and when $F=P_4$, $H=P_3$. We determine the asymptotics of $g(n,H,F)$ when $F$ is a star and $H$ is a tree and when $F=P_5$, $H=K_3$, and we derive upper and lower bounds on $g(n,P_4,P_5)$.

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arXiv2023

Stability of extremal connected hypergraphs avoiding Berge-paths

A Berge-path of length $k$ in a hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$ is a sequence $v_1,e_1,v_2,e_2,\dots,v_{k},e_k,v_{k+1}$ of distinct vertices and hyperedges with $v_{i},v_{i+1} \in e_i$, for $i \le k$. Füredi, Kostochka and Luo, and independently Győri, Salia and Zamora determined the maximum number of hyperedges in an $n$-vertex, connected, $r$-uniform hypergraph that does not contain a Berge-path of length $k$ provided $k$ is large enough compared to $r$. They also determined the unique extremal hypergraph $\mathcal{H}_1$. We prove a stability version of this result by presenting another construction $\mathcal{H}_2$ and showing that any $n$-vertex, connected, $r$-uniform hypergraph without a Berge-path of length $k$, that contains more than $|\mathcal{H}_2|$ hyperedges must be a sub-hypergraph of the extremal hypergraph $\mathcal{H}_1$, provided $k$ is large enough compared to $r$.

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arXiv2023

Projective and external saturation problem for posets

We introduce two variants of the poset saturation problem. For a poset $P$ and the Boolean lattice $\mathcal{B}_n$, a family $\mathcal{F}$ of sets, not necessarily from $\mathcal{B}_n$, is \textit{projective $P$-saturated} if (i) it does not contain any strong copies of $P$, (ii) for any $G\in \mathcal{B}_n\setminus \mathcal{F}$, the family $\mathcal{F}\cup \{G\}$ contains a strong copy of $P$, and (iii) for any two different $F,F'\in\mathcal{F}$ we have $F\cap[n]\neq F'\cap [n]$. Ordinary strongly $P$-saturated families, i.e., subfamilies $\mathcal{F}$ required to be from $\mathcal{B}_n$ satisfying (i) and (ii), automatically satisfy (iii) as they lie within $\mathcal{B}_n$. We study what phenomena are valid both for the ordinary saturation number $\mathrm{sat}^*(n,P)$ and the projective saturation number, the size of the smallest projective $P$-saturated family. Note that the projective saturation number might differ for a poset and its dual. We also introduce an even more relaxed and symmetric version of poset saturation, \textit{external saturation}. We conjecture that all finite posets have bounded external saturation number, and prove this in some special cases.

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arXiv2023

Extremal graph theoretic questions for q-ary vectors

A $q$-graph $H$ on $n$ vertices is a set of vectors of length $n$ with all entries from $\{0,1,\dots,q\}$ and every vector (that we call a $q$-edge) having exactly two non-zero entries. The support of a $q$-edge $\mathbf{x}$ is the pair $S_{\mathbf{x}}$ of indices of non-zero entries. We say that $H$ is an $s$-copy of an ordinary graph $F$ if $|H|=|E(F)|$, $F$ is isomorphic to the graph with edge set $\{S_{\mathbf{x}}:\mathbf{x}\in H\}$, and whenever $v\in e,e'\in E(F)$, the entries with index corresponding to $v$ in the $q$-edges corresponding to $e$ and $e'$ sum up to at least $s$. E.g., the $q$-edges $(1,3,0,0,0), (0,1,0,0,3)$, and $(3,0,0,0,1)$ form a 4-triangle. The Turán number $\mathrm{ex}(n,F,q,s)$ is the maximum number of $q$-edges that a $q$-graph $H$ on $n$ vertices can have if it does not contain any $s$-copies of $F$. In the present paper, we determine the asymptotics of $\mathrm{ex}(n,F,q,q+1)$ for many graphs $F$.

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arXiv2023

The robust chromatic number of graphs

A 1-removed subgraph $G_f$ of a graph $G=(V,E)$ is obtained by $(i)$ selecting at most one edge $f(v)$ for each vertex $v\in V$, such that $v\in f(v)\in E$ (the mapping $f:V\to E \cup \{\varnothing\}$ is allowed to be non-injective), and $(ii)$ deleting all the selected edges $f(v)$ from the edge set $E$ of $G$. Proper vertex colorings of 1-removed subgraphs proved to be a useful tool for earlier research on some Turán-type problems. In this paper, we introduce a systematic investigation of the graph invariant 1-robust chromatic number, denoted as $ω_1(G)$. This invariant is defined as the minimum chromatic number $χ(G_f)$ among all 1-removed subgraphs $G_f$ of $G$. We also examine other standard graph invariants in a similar manner.

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arXiv2023

The robust chromatic number of certain graph classes

A 1-selection $f$ of a graph $G$ is a function $f: V(G)\rightarrow E(G)$ such that $f(v)$ is incident to $v$ for every vertex $v$. The 1-removed $G_f$ is the graph $(V(G),E(G)\setminus f[V(G)])$. The (1-)robust chromatic number $χ_1(G)$ is the minimum of $χ(G_f)$ over all 1-selections $f$ of $G$. We determine the robust chromatic number of complete multipartite graphs and Kneser graphs and prove tight lower and upper bounds on the robust chromatic number of chordal graphs and some of their extensively studied subclasses, with respect to their ordinary chromatic number.

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arXiv2023

Vector sum-intersection theorems

We introduce the following generalization of set intersection via characteristic vectors: for $n,q,s, t \ge 1$ a family $\mathcal{F}\subseteq \{0,1,\dots,q\}^n$ of vectors is said to be \emph{$s$-sum $t$-intersecting} if for any distinct $\mathbf{x},\mathbf{y}\in \mathcal{F}$ there exist at least $t$ coordinates, where the entries of $\mathbf{x}$ and $\mathbf{y}$ sum up to at least $s$, i.e.\ $|\{i:x_i+y_i\ge s\}|\ge t$. The original set intersection corresponds to the case $q=1,s=2$. We address analogs of several variants of classical results in this setting: the Erdős--Ko--Rado theorem and the theorem of Bollobás on intersecting set pairs.

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arXiv2023

Cooperation in Combinatorial Search

In the game theoretical approach of the basic problem in Combinatorial Search an adversary thinks of a defective element $d$ of an $n$-element pool $X$, and the questioner needs to find $x$ by asking questions of type is $d\in Q$? for certain subsets $Q$ of $X$. We study cooperative versions of this problem, where there are multiple questioners, but not all of them learn the answer to the queries. We consider various models that differ in how it is decided who gets to ask the next query, who obtains the answer to the query, and who needs to know the defective element by the end of the process.

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arXiv2022

On graphs that contain exactly k copies of a subgraph, and a related problem in search theory

We study $\mathrm{exa}_k(n,F)$, the largest number of edges in an $n$-vertex graph $G$ that contains exactly $k$ copies of a given subgraph $F$. The case $k=0$ is the Turán number $\mathrm{ex}(n,F)$ that is among the most studied parameters in extremal graph theory. We show that for any $F$ and $k$, $\mathrm{exa}_k(n,F)=(1+o(1))\mathrm{ex}(n,F))$ and determine the exact values of $\mathrm{exa}_k(n,K_3)$ and $\mathrm{exa}_1(n,K_r)$ for $n$ large enough. We also explore a connection to the following well-known problem in search theory. We are given a graph of order $n$ that consists of an unknown copy of $F$ and some isolated vertices. We can ask pairs of vertices as queries, and the answer tells us whether there is an edge between those vertices. Our goal is to describe the graph using as few queries as possible. Aigner and Triesch in 1990 showed that the number of queries needed is at least $\binom{n}{2}-\mathrm{exa}_1(n,F)$. Among other results we show that the number of queries that were answered NO is at least $\binom{n}{2}-\mathrm{exa}_1(n,F)$.

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arXiv2022

On the sizes of $t$-intersecting $k$-chain-free families

A set system $\mathcal{F}$ is $t$-\textit{intersecting}, if the size of the intersection of every pair of its elements has size at least $t$. A set system $\mathcal{F}$ is $k$-\textit{Sperner}, if it does not contain a chain of length $k+1$. Our main result is the following: Suppose that $k$ and $t$ are fixed positive integers, where $n+t$ is even with $t\le n$ and $n$ is large enough. If $\mathcal{F}\subseteq 2^{[n]}$ is a $t$-intersecting $k$-Sperner family, then $|\mathcal{F}|$ has size at most the size of the sum of $k$ layers, of sizes $(n+t)/2,\ldots, (n+t)/2+k-1$. This bound is best possible. The case when $n+t$ is odd remains open.

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arXiv2022

Connected Turán number of trees

As a variant of the much studied Turán number, $ex(n,F)$, the largest number of edges that an $n$-vertex $F$-free graph may contain, we introduce the connected Turán number $ex_c(n,F)$, the largest number of edges that an $n$-vertex connected $F$-free graph may contain. We focus on the case where the forbidden graph is a tree. The celebrated conjecture of Erdős and Sós states that for any tree $T$, we have $ex(n,T)\le(|T|-2)\frac{n}{2}$. We address the problem how much smaller $ex_c(n,T)$ can be, what is the smallest possible ratio of $ex_c(n,T)$ and $(|T|-2)\frac{n}{2}$ as $|T|$ grows. We also determine the exact value of $ex_c(n,T)$ for small trees, in particular for all trees with at most six vertices. We introduce general constructions of connected $T$-free graphs based on graph parameters as longest path, matching number, branching number, etc.

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arXiv2022

Induced and non-induced poset saturation problems

A subfamily $\mathcal{G}\subseteq \mathcal{F}\subseteq 2^{[n]}$ of sets is a non-induced (weak) copy of a poset $P$ in $\mathcal{F}$ if there exists a bijection $i:P\rightarrow \mathcal{G}$ such that $p\le_P q$ implies $i(p)\subseteq i(q)$. In the case where in addition $p\le_P q$ holds if and only if $i(p)\subseteq i(q)$, then $\mathcal{G}$ is an induced (strong) copy of $P$ in $\mathcal{F}$. We consider the minimum number $sat(n,P)$ [resp.\ $sat^*(n,P)$] of sets that a family $\mathcal{F}\subseteq 2^{[n]}$ can have without containing a non-induced [induced] copy of $P$ and being maximal with respect to this property, i.e., the addition of any $G\in 2^{[n]}\setminus \mathcal{F}$ creates a non-induced [induced] copy of $P$. We prove for any finite poset $P$ that $sat(n,P)\le 2^{|P|-2}$, a bound independent of the size $n$ of the ground set. For induced copies of $P$, there is a dichotomy: for any poset $P$ either $sat^*(n,P)\le K_P$ for some constant depending only on $P$ or $sat^*(n,P)\ge \log_2 n$. We classify several posets according to this dichotomy, and also show better upper and lower bounds on $sat(n,P)$ and $sat^*(n,P)$ for specific classes of posets. Our main new tool is a special ordering of the sets based on the colexicographic order. It turns out that if $P$ is given, processing the sets in this order and adding the sets greedily into our family whenever this does not ruin non-induced [induced] $P$-freeness, we tend to get a small size non-induced [induced] $P$-saturating family.

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