arXiv subjects

Benny Sudakov

Publications and source records attributed to Benny Sudakov.

At least 289 records · Page 16Linked to original sources

arXiv2009

Large almost monochromatic subsets in hypergraphs

We show that for all $\ell$ and $ε>0$ there is a constant $c=c(\ell,ε)>0$ such that every $\ell$-coloring of the triples of an $N$-element set contains a subset $S$ of size $c\sqrt{\log N}$ such that at least $1-ε$ fraction of the triples of $S$ have the same color. This result is tight up to the constant $c$ and answers an open question of Erdős and Hajnal from 1989 on discrepancy in hypergraphs. For $\ell \geq 4$ colors, it is known that there is an $\ell$-coloring of the triples of an $N$-element set whose largest monochromatic subset has cardinality only $Θ(\log \log N)$. Thus, our result demonstrates that the maximum almost monochromatic subset that an $\ell$-coloring of the triples must contain is much larger than the corresponding monochromatic subset. This is in striking contrast with graphs, where these two quantities have the same order of magnitude. To prove our result, we obtain a new upper bound on the $\ell$-color Ramsey numbers of complete multipartite 3-uniform hypergraphs, which answers another open question of Erdős and Hajnal.

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arXiv2008

Avoiding small subgraphs in Achlioptas processes

For a fixed integer r, consider the following random process. At each round, one is presented with r random edges from the edge set of the complete graph on n vertices, and is asked to choose one of them. The selected edges are collected into a graph, which thus grows at the rate of one edge per round. This is a natural generalization of what is known in the literature as an Achlioptas process (the original version has r=2), which has been studied by many researchers, mainly in the context of delaying or accelerating the appearance of the giant component. In this paper, we investigate the small subgraph problem for Achlioptas processes. That is, given a fixed graph H, we study whether there is an online algorithm that substantially delays or accelerates a typical appearance of H, compared to its threshold of appearance in the random graph G(n, M). It is easy to see that one cannot accelerate the appearance of any fixed graph by more than the constant factor r, so we concentrate on the task of avoiding H. We determine thresholds for the avoidance of all cycles C_t, cliques K_t, and complete bipartite graphs K_{t,t}, in every Achlioptas process with parameter r >= 2.

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arXiv2008

Large induced trees in K_r-free graphs

For a graph G, let t(G) denote the maximum number of vertices in an induced subgraph of G that is a tree. In this paper, we study the problem of bounding t(G) for graphs which do not contain a complete graph K_r on r vertices. This problem was posed twenty years ago by Erdos, Saks, and Sos. Substantially improving earlier results of various researchers, we prove that every connected triangle-free graph on n vertices contains an induced tree of order \sqrt{n}. When r >= 4, we also show that t(G) >= (\log n)/(4 \log r) for every connected K_r-free graph G of order n. Both of these bounds are tight up to small multiplicative constants, and the first one disproves a recent conjecture of Matousek and Samal.

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arXiv2008

Directed graphs without short cycles

For a directed graph $G$ without loops or parallel edges, let $β(G)$ denote the size of the smallest feedback arc set, i.e., the smallest subset $X \subset E(G)$ such that $G \sm X$ has no directed cycles. Let $γ(G)$ be the number of unordered pairs of vertices of $G$ which are not adjacent. We prove that every directed graph whose shortest directed cycle has length at least $r \ge 4$ satisfies $β(G) \le cγ(G)/r^2$, where $c$ is an absolute constant. This is tight up to the constant factor and extends a result of Chudnovsky, Seymour, and Sullivan. This result can be also used to answer a question of Yuster concerning almost given length cycles in digraphs. We show that for any fixed $0 < θ< 1/2$ and sufficiently large $n$, if $G$ is a digraph with $n$ vertices and $β(G) \ge θn^2$, then for any $0 \le m \le θn-o(n)$ it contains a directed cycle whose length is between $m$ and $m+6 θ^{-1/2}$. Moreover, there is a constant $C$ such that either $G$ contains directed cycles of every length between $C$ and $θn-o(n)$ or it is close to a digraph $G'$ with a simple structure: every strong component of $G'$ is periodic. These results are also tight up to the constant factors.

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arXiv2008

Hypergraph Ramsey numbers

The Ramsey number r_k(s,n) is the minimum N such that every red-blue coloring of the k-tuples of an N-element set contains either a red set of size s or a blue set of size n, where a set is called red (blue) if all k-tuples from this set are red (blue). In this paper we obtain new estimates for several basic hypergraph Ramsey problems. We give a new upper bound for r_k(s,n) for k \geq 3 and s fixed. In particular, we show that r_3(s,n) \leq 2^{n^{s-2}\log n}, which improves by a factor of n^{s-2}/ polylog n the exponent of the previous upper bound of Erdos and Rado from 1952. We also obtain a new lower bound for these numbers, showing that there are constants c_1,c_2>0 such that r_3(s,n) \geq 2^{c_1 sn \log (n/s)} for all 4 \leq s \leq c_2n. When s is a constant, it gives the first superexponential lower bound for r_3(s,n), answering an open question posed by Erdos and Hajnal in 1972. Next, we consider the 3-color Ramsey number r_3(n,n,n), which is the minimum N such that every 3-coloring of the triples of an N-element set contains a monochromatic set of size n. Improving another old result of Erdos and Hajnal, we show that r_3(n,n,n) \geq 2^{n^{c \log n}}. Finally, we make some progress on related hypergraph Ramsey-type problems.

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arXiv2008

Regular induced subgraphs of a random graph

An old problem of Erdős, Fajtlowicz and Staton asks for the order of a largest induced regular subgraph that can be found in every graph on n vertices. Motivated by this problem, we consider the order of such a subgraph in a typical graph on n vertices, i.e., in a binomial random graph G(n,1/2). We prove that with high probability a largest induced regular subgraph of G(n,1/2) has about n^{2/3} vertices.

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arXiv2008

On the random satisfiable process

In this work we suggest a new model for generating random satisfiable k-CNF formulas. To generate such formulas -- randomly permute all 2^k\binom{n}{k} possible clauses over the variables x_1, ..., x_n, and starting from the empty formula, go over the clauses one by one, including each new clause as you go along if after its addition the formula remains satisfiable. We study the evolution of this process, namely the distribution over formulas obtained after scanning through the first m clauses (in the random permutation's order). Random processes with conditioning on a certain property being respected are widely studied in the context of graph properties. This study was pioneered by Ruciński and Wormald in 1992 for graphs with a fixed degree sequence, and also by Erdős, Suen, and Winkler in 1995 for triangle-free and bipartite graphs. Since then many other graph properties were studied such as planarity and H-freeness. Thus our model is a natural extension of this approach to the satisfiability setting. Our main contribution is as follows. For m \geq cn, c=c(k) a sufficiently large constant, we are able to characterize the structure of the solution space of a typical formula in this distribution. Specifically, we show that typically all satisfying assignments are essentially clustered in one cluster, and all but e^{-Ω(m/n)} n of the variables take the same value in all satisfying assignments. We also describe a polynomial time algorithm that finds with high probability a satisfying assignment for such formulas.

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arXiv2008

Triangle packings and 1-factors in oriented graphs

An oriented graph is a directed graph which can be obtained from a simple undirected graph by orienting its edges. In this paper we show that any oriented graph G on n vertices with minimum indegree and outdegree at least (1/2-o(1))n contains a packing of cyclic triangles covering all but at most 3 vertices. This almost answers a question of Cuckler and Yuster and is best possible, since for n = 3 mod 18 there is a tournament with no perfect triangle packing and with all indegrees and outdegrees (n-1)/2 or (n-1)/2 \pm 1. Under the same hypotheses, we also show that one can embed any prescribed almost 1-factor, i.e. for any sequence n_1,...,n_t with n_1+...+n_t < n-O(1) we can find a vertex-disjoint collection of directed cycles with lengths n_1,...,n_t. In addition, under quite general conditions on the n_i we can remove the O(1) additive error and find a prescribed 1-factor.

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arXiv2008

Hamiltonicity thresholds in Achlioptas processes

In this paper we analyze the appearance of a Hamilton cycle in the following random process. The process starts with an empty graph on n labeled vertices. At each round we are presented with K=K(n) edges, chosen uniformly at random from the missing ones, and are asked to add one of them to the current graph. The goal is to create a Hamilton cycle as soon as possible. We show that this problem has three regimes, depending on the value of K. For K=o(\log n), the threshold for Hamiltonicity is (1+o(1))n\log n /(2K), i.e., typically we can construct a Hamilton cycle K times faster that in the usual random graph process. When K=ω(\log n) we can essentially waste almost no edges, and create a Hamilton cycle in n+o(n) rounds with high probability. Finally, in the intermediate regime where K=Θ(\log n), the threshold has order n and we obtain upper and lower bounds that differ by a multiplicative factor of 3.

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arXiv2008

Discrete Kakeya-type problems and small bases

A subset U of a group G is called k-universal if U contains a translate of every k-element subset of G. We give several nearly optimal constructions of small k-universal sets, and use them to resolve an old question of Erdos and Newman on bases for sets of integers, and to obtain several extensions for other groups.

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arXiv2008

Unavoidable patterns

Let \mathcal{F}_k denote the family of 2-edge-colored complete graphs on 2k vertices in which one color forms either a clique of order k or two disjoint cliques of order k. Bollobás conjectured that for every ε>0 and positive integer k there is an n(k,ε) such that every 2-edge-coloring of the complete graph of order n \geq n(k,ε) which has at least ε{n \choose 2} edges in each color contains a member of \mathcal{F}_k. This conjecture was proved by Cutler and Montágh, who showed that n(k,ε)<4^{k/ε}. We give a much simpler proof of this conjecture which in addition shows that n(k,ε)<ε^{-ck} for some constant c. This bound is tight up to the constant factor in the exponent for all k and ε. We also discuss similar results for tournaments and hypergraphs.

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arXiv2008

Two remarks on the Burr-Erdos conjecture

The Ramsey number r(H) of a graph H is the minimum positive integer N such that every two-coloring of the edges of the complete graph K_N on N vertices contains a monochromatic copy of H. A graph H is d-degenerate if every subgraph of H has minimum degree at most d. Burr and Erdős in 1975 conjectured that for each positive integer d there is a constant c_d such that r(H) \leq c_dn for every d-degenerate graph H on n vertices. We show that for such graphs r(H) \leq 2^{c_d\sqrt{\log n}}n, improving on an earlier bound of Kostochka and Sudakov. We also study Ramsey numbers of random graphs, showing that for d fixed, almost surely the random graph G(n,d/n) has Ramsey number linear in n. For random bipartite graphs, our proof gives nearly tight bounds.

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arXiv2008

Large nearly regular induced subgraphs

For a real c \geq 1 and an integer n, let f(n,c) denote the maximum integer f so that every graph on n vertices contains an induced subgraph on at least f vertices in which the maximum degree is at most c times the minimum degree. Thus, in particular, every graph on n vertices contains a regular induced subgraph on at least f(n,1) vertices. The problem of estimating $(n,1) was posed long time ago by Erdos, Fajtlowicz and Staton. In this note we obtain the following upper and lower bounds for the asymptotic behavior of f(n,c): (i) For fixed c>2.1, n^{1-O(1/c)} \leq f(n,c) \leq O(cn/\log n). (ii) For fixed c=1+εwith epsilon>0 sufficiently small, f(n,c) \geq n^{Ω(ε^2/ \ln (1/ε))}. (iii) Ω(\ln n) \leq f(n,1) \leq O(n^{1/2} \ln^{3/4} n). An analogous problem for not necessarily induced subgraphs is briefly considered as well.

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arXiv2007

Induced Ramsey-type theorems

We present a unified approach to proving Ramsey-type theorems for graphs with a forbidden induced subgraph which can be used to extend and improve the earlier results of Rodl, Erdos-Hajnal, Promel-Rodl, Nikiforov, Chung-Graham, and Luczak-Rodl. The proofs are based on a simple lemma (generalizing one by Graham, Rodl, and Rucinski) that can be used as a replacement for Szemeredi's regularity lemma, thereby giving much better bounds. The same approach can be also used to show that pseudo-random graphs have strong induced Ramsey properties. This leads to explicit constructions for upper bounds on various induced Ramsey numbers.

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arXiv2007

Local resilience of graphs

In this paper, we initiate a systematic study of graph resilience. The (local) resilience of a graph G with respect to a property P measures how much one has to change G (locally) in order to destroy P. Estimating the resilience leads to many new and challenging problems. Here we focus on random and pseudo-random graphs and prove several sharp results.

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arXiv2007

On a problem of Duke-Erdos-Rodl on cycle-connected subgraphs

In this short note, we prove that for β< 1/5 every graph G with n vertices and n^{2-β} edges contains a subgraph G' with at least cn^{2-2β} edges such that every pair of edges in G' lie together on a cycle of length at most 8. Moreover edges in G' which share a vertex lie together on a cycle of length at most 6. This result is best possible up to the constant factor and settles a conjecture of Duke, Erdos, and Rodl.

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arXiv2007

Density theorems for bipartite graphs and related Ramsey-type results

In this paper, we present several density-type theorems which show how to find a copy of a sparse bipartite graph in a graph of positive density. Our results imply several new bounds for classical problems in graph Ramsey theory and improve and generalize earlier results of various researchers. The proofs combine probabilistic arguments with some combinatorial ideas. In addition, these techniques can be used to study properties of graphs with a forbidden induced subgraph, edge intersection patterns in topological graphs, and to obtain several other Ramsey-type statements.

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arXiv2007

Ramsey numbers of sparse hypergraphs

We give a short proof that any k-uniform hypergraph H on n vertices with bounded degree Δhas Ramsey number at most c(Δ, k)n, for an appropriate constant c(Δ, k). This result was recently proved by several authors, but those proofs are all based on applications of the hypergraph regularity method. Here we give a much simpler, self-contained proof which uses new techniques developed recently by the authors together with an argument of Kostochka and Rödl. Moreover, our method demonstrates that, for k \geq 4, c(Δ, k) \leq 2^{2^{\Ddots^{2^{c Δ}}}}, where the tower is of height k and the constant c depends on k. It significantly improves on the Ackermann-type upper bound that arises from the regularity proofs, and we present a construction which shows that, at least in certain cases, this bound is not far from best possible. Our methods also allows us to prove quite sharp results on the Ramsey number of hypergraphs with at most m edges.

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