arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Maria-Romina Ivan.
In this note we show that if the sphere $\mathbb{S}^n$ is covered by $k$ open sets with $n \geq 2k-2$, then one of these sets contains a path with antipodal endpoints. This is best possible in the sense that the statement fails for $n < 2k-2$. The result can be seen as a spherical analogue of a well-known conjecture of Norine on edge-colourings of the discrete hypercube.
A finite subset $X$ of $\mathbb R^d$ is called Ramsey if for every $k$ there exists an $n$ such that whenever $\mathbb R^n$ is $k$-coloured there exists a monochromatic congruent copy of $X$. K\v r\'i\v z showed that if there is a soluble group of symmetries of $X$ that acts transitively on $X$, then $X$ is Ramsey. Determining which sets are Ramsey is a major unsolved problem. In this paper we show that if there is a finite group of isometries of $\mathbb R^d$ that acts transitively on a set $X$, and also on a set $Y$, then the `prism' formed by $X$ and $Y$ in $\mathbb R^{d+1}$ (meaning the set $X$ together with a translate of $Y$ in the direction perpendicular to $\mathbb R^d$) is itself contained in a finite set on which a group of isometries acts transitively. Moreover, if the initial group of isometries is soluble then so is the final group. This provides a new tool for generating Ramsey sets.
Given a finite poset $\mathcal P$, how small can a family $\mathcal F$ of subsets of $[n]$ be such that $\mathcal F$ does not contain an induced copy of $\mathcal P$, but $\mathcal F\cup\{X\}$ contains such a copy for all $X\in\mathcal P([n])\setminus\mathcal F$? This is known as the induced saturation number of $\mathcal P$, denoted by $\text{sat}^*(n,\mathcal P)$. The main conjecture in the area is that the induced saturation number for any poset is either bounded, or linear. In this paper we establish linearity for the induced saturation number of the 4-point poset $\mathcal N$. Previously, it was known that $2\sqrt n\leq\text{sat}^*(n,\mathcal N)\leq 2n$. We show that $\text{sat}^*(n,\mathcal N)\geq\frac{n+6}{4}$. A crucial role in the proof is played by a structural feature of $\mathcal N$-saturated families, namely that if the family contains two antichains, one completely above the other, then it must also contain a `middle' point -- greater than one antichain and less than the other.
What is the smallest size of a family of subsets of $[n]$ such that it does not contain an induced copy of $Q_2$ as a poset (known as the \textit{diamond}), but adding a new set creates such a copy? It is easy to see that a maximal chain has this property, and thus the answer is at most $n+1$. Despite the simplicity of the diamond structure, the lower bound stagnated at $\sqrt n$ for quite some time, until recently the authors obtained a linear lower bound. In this paper, we fully solve this question showing that such a family must have size at least $n+1$.
Given two finite posets $\mathcal P$ and $\mathcal Q$, their Ramsey number, denoted by $R(\mathcal P,\mathcal Q)$, is defined to be the smallest integer $N$ such that any blue/red colouring of the vertices of the hypercube $Q_N$ has either a blue induced copy of $\mathcal P$, or a red induced copy of $\mathcal Q$. Axenovich and Walzer showed that, for fixed $\mathcal P$, $R(\mathcal P, Q_n)$ grows linearly with $n$. However, for the diagonal question, we do not even come close to knowing the order of growth of $R(Q_n,Q_n)$. The current upper bound is $R(Q_n,Q_n)\leq n^2-(1-o(1))n\log n$, due to Axenovich and Winter. What about lower bounds? It is trivial to see that $2n\leq R(Q_n,Q_n)$, but surprisingly, even an incremental improvement required significant work. Recently, an elegant probabilistic argument of Winter gave that, for large enough $n$, $R(Q_n,Q_n)\geq 2.02n$. In this paper we show that $R(Q_n,Q_n)\geq 2.7n+k$, where $k$ is a constant. Our current techniques might in principle show that in fact, for every $ε>0$, for large enough $n$, $R(Q_n,Q_n)\geq (3-ε)n$. Our methods exploit careful modifications of layered-colourings, for a large number of layers. These modifications are stronger than previous arguments as they are more constructive, rather than purely probabilistic.
The game of cops and robbers, played on a fixed graph $G$, is a two-player game, where the cop and the robber (the players) take turns in moving to adjacent vertices. The game finishes if the cop lands on the robber's vertex. In that case we say that the cop wins. If the cop can always win, regardless of the starting positions, we say that $G$ is a cop-win graph. For a finite cop-win graph $G$ we can ask for the minimum number $n$ such that, regardless of the starting positions, the game will end in at most $n$ steps. This number is called the maximum capture time of $G$. By looking at finite paths, we see that any non-negative integer is the maximum capture time for a cop-win graph. What about infinite cop-win graphs? In this case, the notion of capture time is nicely generalised if one works with ordinals, and so the question becomes which ordinals can be the maximum capture time of a cop-win graph? These ordinals are called CR (Cop-Robber)-ordinals. In this paper we fully settle this by showing that all ordinals are CR-ordinals, answering a question of Bonato, Gordinowicz and Hahn.
For a fixed poset $\mathcal P$ we say that a family $\mathcal F\subseteq\mathcal P([n])$ is $\mathcal P$-saturated if it does not contain an induced copy of $\mathcal P$, but whenever we add a new set to $\mathcal F$, we form an induced copy of $\mathcal P$. The size of the smallest such family is denoted by $\text{sat}^*(n, \mathcal P)$.\par For the diamond poset $\mathcal D_2$ (the two-dimensional Boolean lattice), while it is easy to see that the saturation number is at most $n+1$, the best known lower bound has stayed at $O(\sqrt n)$ since the introduction of the area of poset saturation. In this paper we prove that $\text{sat}^*(n, \mathcal D_2)\geq \frac{n+1}{5}$, establishing that the saturation number for the diamond is linear. The proof uses a result about certain pairs of set systems.
Given a finite poset $\mathcal P$, the hypercube-height, denoted by $h^*(\mathcal P)$, is defined to be the minimum $h$ such that there exists a natural number $n$ for which the subsets of $[n]$ of size at most $h$ contain an induced copy of $\mathcal P$. The hypercube-width, denoted by $w^*(\mathcal P)$, is the smallest $w$ such that the subsets of $[w]$ of size at most $h^*(\mathcal P)$ contain an induced copy of $\mathcal P$. In other words, $h^*(\mathcal P)$ asks how `low' can a poset be embedded, and $w^*(\mathcal P)$ asks for the first hypercube in which such an `optimal' embedding occurs. These notions were introduced by Bastide, Groenland, Ivan and Johnston in connection to upper bounds for the poset saturation numbers. While it is not hard to see that $h^*(\mathcal P)\leq |\mathcal P|-1$ (and this bound can be tight), the hypercube-width has proved to be much more elusive. It was shown by the authors mentioned above that $w^*(\mathcal P)\leq|\mathcal P|^2/4$, but they conjectured that in fact $w^*(\mathcal P)\leq |\mathcal P|$ for any finite poset $\mathcal P$. In this paper we prove this conjecture. The proof uses Hall's theorem for bipartite graphs as a precision tool for modifying an existing copy of our poset.
Given a finite poset $\mathcal P$, we say that a family $\mathcal F$ of subsets of $[n]$ is $\mathcal P$-saturated if $\mathcal F$ does not contain an induced copy of $\mathcal P$, but adding any other set to $\mathcal F$ creates an induced copy of $\mathcal P$. The saturation number of $\mathcal P$ is the size of the smallest $\mathcal P$-saturated family with ground set $[n]$. The saturation numbers have been shown to exhibit a dichotomy: for any poset, the saturation number is either bounded, or at least $2\sqrt n$. The general conjecture is that in fact, the saturation number for any poset is either bounded, or at least linear. The linear sum of two posets $\mathcal P_1$ and $\mathcal P_2$, dented by $\mathcal P_1*\mathcal P_2$, is defined as the poset obtained from a copy of $\mathcal P_1$ placed completely on top of a copy of $\mathcal P_2$. In this paper we show that the saturation number of $\mathcal P_1*\mathcal A_k*\mathcal P_2$ is always at least linear, for any $\mathcal P_1$, $\mathcal P_2$ and $k\geq2$, where $\mathcal A_k$ is the antichain of size $k$. This is a generalisation of the recent result that the saturation number for the diamond is linear (in that case $\mathcal P_1$ and $\mathcal P_2$ are both the single point poset, and $k=2$). We also show that, with the exception of chains which are known to have bounded saturation number, the saturation number for all complete multipartite posets is linear.
The game of cops and robbers is played on a fixed (finite or infinite) graph $G$. The cop chooses his starting position, then the robber chooses his. After that, they take turns and move to adjacent vertices, or stay at their current vertex, with the cop moving first. The game finishes if the cop lands on the robber's vertex. In that case we say that the cop wins, while if the robber is never caught then we say that the robber wins. The graph $G$ is called cop-win if the cop has a winning strategy. In this paper we construct an infinite cop-win graph in which, for any two given starting positions of the cop and the robber, we can name in advance a finite time in which the cop can capture the robber, but these finite times are not bounded above. This shows that this graph has maximum capture time (CR-ordinal) $ω$, disproving a conjecture of Bonato, Gordinowicz and Hahn that no such graph should exist.
How small can a set of vertices in the $n$-dimensional hypercube $Q_n$ be if it meets every copy of $Q_d$? The asymptotic density of such a set (for $d$ fixed and $n$ large) is denoted by $γ_d$. It is easy to see that $γ_d \leq 1/(d+1)$, and it is known that $γ_d=1/(d+1)$ for $d \leq 2$, but it was recently shown that $γ_d < 1/(d+1)$ for $d \geq 8$. In this paper we show that the latter phenomenon also holds for $d=7$ and $d=6$.
For a given fixed poset $\mathcal P$ we say that a family of subsets of $[n]$ is $\mathcal P$-saturated if it does not contain an induced copy of $\mathcal P$, but whenever we add to it a new set, an induced copy of $\mathcal P$ is formed. The size of the smallest such family is denoted by $\text{sat}^*(n, \mathcal P)$. For the diamond poset $\mathcal D_2$ (the two-dimensional Boolean lattice), Martin, Smith and Walker proved that $\sqrt n\leq\text{sat}^*(n, \mathcal D_2)\leq n+1$. In this paper we prove that $\text{sat}^*(n, \mathcal D_2)\geq (4-o(1))\sqrt n$. We also explore the properties that a diamond-saturated family of size $c\sqrt n$, for a constant $c$, would have to have.
Given a finite poset $\mathcal P$, we say that a family $\mathcal F$ of subsets of $[n]$ is $\mathcal P$-saturated if $\mathcal F$ does not contain an induced copy of $\mathcal P$, but adding any other set to $\mathcal F$ creates an induced copy of $\mathcal P$. The saturation number of $\mathcal P$ is the size of the smallest $\mathcal P$-saturated family with ground set $[n]$. The saturation number for posets is known to exhibit a dichotomy: it is either bounded or it has at least $\sqrt n$ rate of growth. Determining which posets have bounded saturation number is a major open problem. In this paper we consider a `gluing' operation, formed from two finite posets $\mathcal P$ and $\mathcal Q$ by setting all elements of $\mathcal P$ to be below all elements of $\mathcal Q$. We show that (under some mild assumptions) this operation preserves bounded and unbounded saturation number. This is the first such `new from old' poset construction to be found. As an application, we show that for any poset $\mathcal P$ one may add at most 3 elements to $\mathcal P$ to obtain a poset whose saturation number growth is at most linear: this may be viewed as a step towards the other major open problem in the area, namely the conjecture that every finite poset has this growth at most linear. We also consider the poset equivalent of weak saturation for graphs: for each finite poset $\mathcal P$, we determine exactly the minimum size of a percolating family for $\mathcal P$.
The proportion of $d$-element subsets of $\mathbb{F}_2^d$ that are bases is asymptotic to $\prod_{j=1}^{\infty}(1-2^{-j}) \approx 0.29$ as $d \to \infty$. It is natural to ask whether there exists a (large) subset $\mathcal{F}$ of $\mathbb{F}_2^d$ such that the proportion of $d$-element subsets of $\mathcal{F}$ that are bases is (asymptotically) greater than this number. As well as being a natural question in its own right, this would imply better lower bounds on the Turán densities of certain hypercubes and `daisy' hypergraphs. We give a negative answer to the above question. More generally, we obtain an asymptotically sharp upper bound on the proportion of linearly independent $r$-element subsets of a (large) family of vectors in $\mathbb{F}_2^d$, for $r \leq d$. This bound follows from an exact result concerning the probability of obtaining a linearly independent sequence when we randomly sample $r$ elements with replacement from our family of vectors: we show that this probability, for any family of vectors, is at most what it is when the family is the whole space $\mathbb{F}_2^d \setminus \{0\}$. Our results also go through when $\mathbb{F}_2$ is replaced by $\mathbb{F}_q$ for any prime power $q$.
An $r$-daisy is an $r$-uniform hypergraph consisting of the six $r$-sets formed by taking the union of an $(r-2)$-set with each of the 2-sets of a disjoint 4-set. Bollobás, Leader and Malvenuto, and also Bukh, conjectured that the Turán density of the $r$-daisy tends to zero as $r \to \infty$. In this paper we disprove this conjecture. Adapting our construction, we are also able to disprove a folklore conjecture about Turán densities of hypercubes. For fixed $d$ and large $n$, we show that the smallest set of vertices of the $n$-dimensional hypercube $Q_n$ that meets every copy of $Q_d$ has asymptotic density strictly below $1/(d+1)$, for all $d \geq 8$. In fact, we show that this asymptotic density is at most $c^d$, for some constant $c<1$. As a consequence, we obtain similar bounds for the edge-Turán densities of hypercubes. We also answer some related questions of Johnson and Talbot, and disprove a conjecture made by Bukh and by Griggs and Lu on poset densities.
A set $X$ is called Euclidean Ramsey if, for any $k$ and sufficiently large $n$, every $k$-colouring of $\mathbb{R}^n$ contains a monochromatic congruent copy of $X$. This notion was introduced by Erdős, Graham, Montgomery, Rothschild, Spencer and Straus. They asked if a set is Ramsey if and only if it is spherical, meaning that it lies on the surface of a sphere. It is not too difficult to show that if a set is not spherical then it is not Euclidean Ramsey either, but the converse is very much open despite extensive research over the years. On the other hand, the block sets conjecture is a purely combinatorial, Hales-Jewett type of statement, concerning `blocks in large products', introduced by Leader, Russell and Walters. If true, the block sets conjecture would imply that every transitive set (a set whose symmetry group acts transitively) is Euclidean Ramsey. As for the question above, the block sets conjecture remains very elusive, being known only in a few cases. In this paper we show that the sizes of the blocks in the block sets conjecture cannot be bounded, even for templates over the alphabet of size $3$. We also show that for the first non-trivial template, namely $123$, the blocks may be taken to be of size $2$ (for any number of colours). This is best possible; all previous bounds were `tower-type' large.
Given a finite poset $\mathcal P$, we say that a family $\mathcal F$ of subsets of $[n]$ is $\mathcal P$-saturated if $\mathcal F$ does not contain an induced copy of $\mathcal P$, but adding any other set to $\mathcal F$ creates an induced copy of $\mathcal P$. The induced saturation number of $\mathcal P$, denoted by $\text{sat}^*(n,\mathcal P)$, is the size of the smallest $\mathcal P$-saturated family with ground set $[n]$. In this paper we prove that the saturation number for any given poset grows at worst polynomially. More precisely, we show that $\text{sat}^*(n, \mathcal P)=O(n^c)$, where $c\leq|\mathcal{P}|^2/4+1$ is a constant depending on $\mathcal P$ only. We obtain this result by bounding the VC-dimension of our family.
One of the great pleasures of working with Imre Leader is to experience his infectious delight on encountering a compelling combinatorial problem. This collection of open problems in combinatorics has been put together by a subset of his former PhD students and students-of-students for the occasion of his 60th birthday. All of the contributors have been influenced (directly or indirectly) by Imre: his personality, enthusiasm and his approach to mathematics. The problems included cover many of the areas of combinatorial mathematics that Imre is most associated with: including extremal problems on graphs, set systems and permutations, and Ramsey theory. This is a personal selection of problems which we find intriguing and deserving of being better known. It is not intended to be systematic, or to consist of the most significant or difficult questions in any area. Rather, our main aim is to celebrate Imre and his mathematics and to hope that these problems will make him smile. We also hope this collection will be a useful resource for researchers in combinatorics and will stimulate some enjoyable collaborations and beautiful mathematics.