arXiv subjects

Benny Sudakov

Publications and source records attributed to Benny Sudakov.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

Covering graphs by monochromatic trees and Helly-type results for hypergraphs

How many monochromatic paths, cycles or general trees does one need to cover all vertices of a given $r$-edge-coloured graph $G$? These problems were introduced in the 1960s and were intensively studied by various researchers over the last 50 years. In this paper, we establish a connection between this problem and the following natural Helly-type question in hypergraphs. Roughly speaking, this question asks for the maximum number of vertices needed to cover all the edges of a hypergraph $H$ if it is known that any collection of a few edges of $H$ has a small cover. We obtain quite accurate bounds for the hypergraph problem and use them to give some unexpected answers to several questions about covering graphs by monochromatic trees raised and studied by Bal and DeBiasio, Kohayakawa, Mota and Schacht, Lang and Lo, and Girão, Letzter and Sahasrabudhe.

math.CO↗

arXiv2020

The Kőnig Graph Process

Say that a graph G has property $\mathcal{K}$ if the size of its maximum matching is equal to the order of a minimal vertex cover. We study the following process. Set $N:= \binom{n}{2}$ and let $e_1, e_2, \dots e_{N}$ be a uniformly random ordering of the edges of $K_n$, with $n$ an even integer. Let $G_0$ be the empty graph on $n$ vertices. For $m \geq 0$, $G_{m+1}$ is obtained from $G_m$ by adding the edge $e_{m+1}$ exactly if $G_m \cup \{ e_{m+1}\}$ has property $\mathcal{K}$. We analyse the behaviour of this process, focusing mainly on two questions: What can be said about the structure of $G_N$ and for which $m$ will $G_m$ contain a perfect matching?

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arXiv2020

New bounds for Ryser's conjecture and related problems

A Latin square of order $n$ is an $n \times n$ array filled with $n$ symbols such that each symbol appears only once in every row or column and a transversal is a collection of cells which do not share the same row, column or symbol. The study of Latin squares goes back more than 200 years to the work of Euler. One of the most famous open problems in this area is a conjecture of Ryser-Brualdi-Stein from 60s which says that every Latin square of order $n\times n$ contains a transversal of order $n-1$. In this paper we prove the existence of a transversal of order $n-O(\log{n}/\log{\log{n}})$, improving the celebrated bound of $n-O(\log^2n)$ by Hatami and Shor. Our approach (different from that of Hatami-Shor) is quite general and gives several other applications as well. We obtain a new lower bound on a 40 year old conjecture of Brouwer on the maximum matching in Steiner triple systems, showing that every such system of order $n$ is guaranteed to have a matching of size $n/3-O(\log{n}/\log{\log{n}})$. This substantially improves the current best result of Alon, Kim and Spencer which has the error term of order $n^{1/2+o(1)}$. Finally, we also show that $O(n\log{n}/\log{\log{n}})$ many symbols in Latin arrays suffice to guarantee a full transversal, improving on previously known bound of $n^{2-\varepsilon}$. The proofs combine in a novel way the semirandom method together with the robust expansion properties of edge coloured pseudorandom graphs to show the existence of a rainbow matching covering all but $O(\log n/\log{\log{n}})$ vertices. All previous results, based on the semi-random method, left uncovered at least $Ω(n^α)$ (for some constant $α$) vertices.

math.CO↗

arXiv2020

Lower bounds for Max-Cut in $H$-free graphs via semidefinite programming

For a graph $G$, let $f(G)$ denote the size of the maximum cut in $G$. The problem of estimating $f(G)$ as a function of the number of vertices and edges of $G$ has a long history and was extensively studied in the last fifty years. In this paper we propose an approach, based on semidefinite programming (SDP), to prove lower bounds on $f(G)$. We use this approach to find large cuts in graphs with few triangles and in $K_r$-free graphs.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2020

C4-free subgraphs with large average degree

Motivated by a longstanding conjecture of Thomassen, we study how large the average degree of a graph needs to be to imply that it contains a $C_4$-free subgraph with average degree at least $t$. Kühn and Osthus showed that an average degree bound which is double exponential in t is sufficient. We give a short proof of this bound, before reducing it to a single exponential. That is, we show that any graph $G$ with average degree at least $2^{ct^2\log t}$ (for some constant $c>0$) contains a $C_4$-free subgraph with average degree at least $t$. Finally, we give a construction which improves the lower bound for this problem, showing that this initial average degree must be at least $t^{3-o(1)}$.

math.CO↗

arXiv2020

Halfway to Rota's basis conjecture

In 1989, Rota made the following conjecture. Given $n$ bases $B_{1},\dots,B_{n}$ in an $n$-dimensional vector space $V$, one can always find $n$ disjoint bases of $V$, each containing exactly one element from each $B_{i}$ (we call such bases transversal bases). Rota's basis conjecture remains wide open despite its apparent simplicity and the efforts of many researchers (for example, the conjecture was recently the subject of the collaborative "Polymath" project). In this paper we prove that one can always find $\left(1/2-o\left(1\right)\right)n$ disjoint transversal bases, improving on the previous best bound of $Ω\left(n/\log n\right)$. Our results also apply to the more general setting of matroids.

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arXiv2020

2-factors with k cycles in Hamiltonian graphs

A well known generalisation of Dirac's theorem states that if a graph $G$ on $n\ge 4k$ vertices has minimum degree at least $n/2$ then $G$ contains a $2$-factor consisting of exactly $k$ cycles. This is easily seen to be tight in terms of the bound on the minimum degree. However, if one assumes in addition that $G$ is Hamiltonian it has been conjectured that the bound on the minimum degree may be relaxed. This was indeed shown to be true by Sárközy. In subsequent papers, the minimum degree bound has been improved, most recently to $(2/5+\varepsilon)n$ by DeBiasio, Ferrara, and Morris. On the other hand no lower bounds close to this are known, and all papers on this topic ask whether the minimum degree needs to be linear. We answer this question, by showing that the required minimum degree for large Hamiltonian graphs to have a $2$-factor consisting of a fixed number of cycles is sublinear in $n.$

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arXiv2020

A proof of Ringel's Conjecture

A typical decomposition question asks whether the edges of some graph $G$ can be partitioned into disjoint copies of another graph $H$. One of the oldest and best known conjectures in this area, posed by Ringel in 1963, concerns the decomposition of complete graphs into edge-disjoint copies of a tree. It says that any tree with $n$ edges packs $2n+1$ times into the complete graph $K_{2n+1}$. In this paper, we prove this conjecture for large $n$.

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arXiv2020

Orthonormal representations of $H$-free graphs

Let $x_1, \ldots, x_n \in \mathbb{R}^d$ be unit vectors such that among any three there is an orthogonal pair. How large can $n$ be as a function of $d$, and how large can the length of $x_1 + \ldots + x_n$ be? The answers to these two celebrated questions, asked by Erdős and Lovász, are closely related to orthonormal representations of triangle-free graphs, in particular to their Lovász $\vartheta$-function and minimum semidefinite rank. In this paper, we study these parameters for general $H$-free graphs. In particular, we show that for certain bipartite graphs $H$, there is a connection between the Turán number of $H$ and the maximum of $\vartheta \left( \overline{G} \right)$ over all $H$-free graphs $G$.

math.CO↗

arXiv2020

Asymptotics in percolation on high-girth expanders

We consider supercritical bond percolation on a family of high-girth $d$-regular expanders. Alon, Benjamini and Stacey (2004) established that its critical probability for the appearance of a linear-sized ("giant'') component is $p_c=1/(d-1)$. Our main result recovers the sharp asymptotics of the size and degree distribution of the vertices in the giant and its 2-core at any $p>p_c$. It was further shown in [ABS04] that the second largest component, at any $0<p<1$, has size at most $n^ω$ for some $ω<1$. We show that, unlike the situation in the classical Erdős-Rényi random graph, the second largest component in bond percolation on a regular expander, even with an arbitrarily large girth, can have size $n^{ω'}$ for $ω'$ arbitrarily close to $1$. Moreover, as a by-product of that construction, we answer negatively a question of Benjamini (2013) on the relation between the diameter of a component in percolation on expanders and the existence of a giant component. Finally, we establish other typical features of the giant component, e.g., the existence of a linear path.

math.PR↗

arXiv2019

Uniform chain decompositions and applications

The Boolean lattice $2^{[n]}$ is the family of all subsets of $[n]=\{1,\dots,n\}$ ordered by inclusion, and a chain is a family of pairwise comparable elements of $2^{[n]}$. Let $s=2^{n}/\binom{n}{\lfloor n/2\rfloor}$, which is the average size of a chain in a minimal chain decomposition of $2^{[n]}$. We prove that $2^{[n]}$ can be partitioned into $\binom{n}{\lfloor n/2\rfloor}$ chains such that all but at most $o(1)$ proportion of the chains have size $s(1+o(1))$. This asymptotically proves a conjecture of Füredi from 1985. Our proof is based on probabilistic arguments. To analyze our random partition we develop a weighted variant of the graph container method. Using this result, we also answer a Kalai-type question raised recently by Das, Lamaison and Tran. What is the minimum number of forbidden comparable pairs forcing that the largest subfamily of $2^{[n]}$ not containing any of them has size at most $\binom{n}{\lfloor n/2\rfloor}$? We show that the answer is $(\sqrt{\fracπ{8}}+o(1))2^{n}\sqrt{n}$. Finally, we discuss how these uniform chain decompositions can be used to optimize and simplify various results in extremal set theory.

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arXiv2019

Turán number of bipartite graphs with no $K_{t,t}$

The extremal number of a graph $H$, denoted by $\mbox{ex}(n,H)$, is the maximum number of edges in a graph on $n$ vertices that does not contain $H$. The celebrated Kővári-Sós-Turán theorem says that for a complete bipartite graph with parts of size $t\leq s$ the extremal number is $\mbox{ex}(K_{s,t})=O(n^{2-1/t})$. It is also known that this bound is sharp if $s>(t-1)!$. In this paper, we prove that if $H$ is a bipartite graph such that all vertices in one of its parts have degree at most $t$, but $H$ contains no copy of $K_{t,t}$, then $\mbox{ex}(n,H)=o(n^{2-1/t})$. This verifies a conjecture of Conlon, Janzer and Lee.

math.CO↗

arXiv2019

Bounded Degree Spanners of the Hypercube

In this short note we study two questions about the existence of subgraphs of the hypercube $Q_n$ with certain properties. The first question, due to Erdős--Hamburger--Pippert--Weakley, asks whether there exists a bounded degree subgraph of $Q_n$ which has diameter $n$. We answer this question by giving an explicit construction of such a subgraph with maximum degree at most 120. The second problem concerns properties of $k$-additive spanners of the hypercube, that is, subgraphs of $Q_n$ in which the distance between any two vertices is at most $k$ larger than in $Q_n$. Denoting by $Δ_{k,\infty}(n)$ the minimum possible maximum degree of a $k$-additive spanner of $Q_n$, Arizumi--Hamburger--Kostochka showed that $$\frac{n}{\ln n}e^{-4k}\leq Δ_{2k,\infty}(n)\leq 20\frac{n}{\ln n}\ln \ln n.$$ We improve their upper bound by showing that $$Δ_{2k,\infty}(n)\leq 10^{4k} \frac{n}{\ln n}\ln^{(k+1)}n,$$where the last term denotes a $k+1$-fold iterated logarithm.

math.CO↗

arXiv2019

Books versus triangles at the extremal density

A celebrated result of Mantel shows that every graph on $n$ vertices with $\lfloor n^2/4 \rfloor + 1$ edges must contain a triangle. A robust version of this result, due to Rademacher, says that there must in fact be at least $\lfloor n/2 \rfloor$ triangles in any such graph. Another strengthening, due to the combined efforts of many authors starting with Erdős, says that any such graph must have an edge which is contained in at least $n/6$ triangles. Following Mubayi, we study the interplay between these two results, that is, between the number of triangles in such graphs and their book number, the largest number of triangles sharing an edge. Among other results, Mubayi showed that for any $1/6 \leq β< 1/4$ there is $γ> 0$ such that any graph on $n$ vertices with at least $\lfloor n^2/4\rfloor + 1$ edges and book number at most $βn$ contains at least $(γ-o(1))n^3$ triangles. He also asked for a more precise estimate for $γ$ in terms of $β$. We make a conjecture about this dependency and prove this conjecture for $β= 1/6$ and for $0.2495 \leq β< 1/4$, thereby answering Mubayi's question in these ranges.

math.CO↗

arXiv2019

An extremal problem for integer sparse recovery

Motivated by the problem of integer sparse recovery we study the following question. Let $A$ be an $m \times d$ integer matrix whose entries are in absolute value at most $k$. How large can be $d=d(m,k)$ if all $m \times m$ submatrices of $A$ are non-degenerate? We obtain new upper and lower bounds on $d$ and answer a special case of the problem by Brass, Moser and Pach on covering $m$-dimensional $k \times \cdots\times k$ grid by linear subspaces.

math.CO↗

arXiv2019

Nearly-linear monotone paths in edge-ordered graphs

How long a monotone path can one always find in any edge-ordering of the complete graph $K_n$? This appealing question was first asked by Chvátal and Komlós in 1971, and has since attracted the attention of many researchers, inspiring a variety of related problems. The prevailing conjecture is that one can always find a monotone path of linear length, but until now the best known lower bound was $n^{2/3-o(1)}$. In this paper we almost close this gap, proving that any edge-ordering of the complete graph contains a monotone path of length $n^{1-o(1)}$.

math.CO↗

arXiv2019

Multicolour bipartite Ramsey number of paths

The $k$-colour bipartite Ramsey number of a bipartite graph $H$ is the least integer $N$ for which every $k$-edge-coloured complete bipartite graph $K_{N,N}$ contains a monochromatic copy of $H$. The study of bipartite Ramsey numbers was initiated over 40 years ago by Faudree and Schelp and, independently, by Gyárfás and Lehel, who determined the $2$-colour bipartite Ramsey number of paths. Recently the $3$-colour Ramsey number of paths and (even) cycles, was essentially determined as well. Improving the results of DeBiasio, Gyárfás, Krueger, Ruszinkó, and Sárközy, in this paper we determine asymptotically the $4$-colour bipartite Ramsey number of paths and cycles. We also provide new upper bounds on the $k$-colour bipartite Ramsey numbers of paths and cycles which are close to being tight.

math.CO↗

arXiv2019

Three colour bipartite Ramsey number of cycles and paths

The $k$-colour bipartite Ramsey number of a bipartite graph $H$ is the least integer $n$ for which every $k$-edge-coloured complete bipartite graph $K_{n,n}$ contains a monochromatic copy of $H$. The study of bipartite Ramsey numbers was initiated, over 40 years ago, by Faudree and Schelp and, independently, by Gyárfás and Lehel, who determined the $2$-colour Ramsey number of paths. In this paper we determine asymptotically the $3$-colour bipartite Ramsey number of paths and (even) cycles.

math.CO↗