arXiv subjects

Xizhi Liu

Publications and source records attributed to Xizhi Liu.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2024

Nondegenerate Turán problems under $(t,p)$-norms

Given integers $r > t \ge 1$ and a real number $p > 0$, the $(t,p)$-norm $\left\lVert \mathcal{H} \right\rVert_{t,p}$ of an $r$-graph $\mathcal{H}$ is the sum of the $p$-th power of the degrees $d_{\mathcal{H}}(T)$ over all $t$-subsets $T \subset V(\mathcal{H})$. We conduct a systematic study of the Turán-type problem of determining $\mathrm{ex}_{t,p}(n,\mathcal{F})$, which is the maximum of $\left\lVert \mathcal{H} \right\rVert_{t,p}$ over all $n$-vertex $\mathcal{F}$-free $r$-graphs $\mathcal{H}$. We establish several basic properties for the $(t,p)$-norm of $r$-graphs, enabling us to derive general theorems from the recently established framework in~\cite{CL24} that are useful for determining $\mathrm{ex}_{t,p}(n,\mathcal{F})$ and proving the corresponding stability. We determine the asymptotic value of $\mathrm{ex}_{t,p}(n,H_{F}^{r})$ for all feasible combinations of $(r,t,p)$ and for every graph $F$ with chromatic number greater than $r$, where $H_{F}^{r}$ represents the expansion of $F$. In the case where $F$ is edge-critical and $p \ge 1$, we establish strong stability and determine the exact value of $\mathrm{ex}_{t,p}(n,H_{F}^{r})$ for all sufficiently large $n$. These results extend the seminal theorems of Erdős--Stone--Simonovits, Andrásfai--Erdős--Sós, Erdős--Simonovits, and a classical theorem of Mubayi. For the $3$-uniform generalized triangle $F_5$, we determine the exact value of $\mathrm{ex}_{2,p}(n,F_5)$ for all $p \ge 1$ and its asymptotic value for all $p \in [1/2, 1]\cup \{k^{-1} \colon k \in 6\mathbb{N}^{+}+\{0,2\}\}$. This extends old theorems of Bollobás, Frankl--Füredi, and a recent result of Balogh--Clemen--Lidický. Our proofs utilize results on the graph inducibility problem, Steiner triple systems, and the feasible region problem introduced by Liu--Mubayi.

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arXiv2024

Tight bounds for rainbow partial $F$-tiling in edge-colored complete hypergraphs

For an $r$-graph $F$ and integers $n,t$ satisfying $t \le n/v(F)$, let $\mathrm{ar}(n,tF)$ denote the minimum integer $N$ such that every edge-coloring of $K_{n}^{r}$ using $N$ colors contains a rainbow copy of $tF$, where $tF$ is the $r$-graphs consisting of $t$ vertex-disjoint copies of $F$. The case $t=1$ is the classical anti-Ramsey problem proposed by Erdős--Simonovits--Sós~\cite{ESS75}. When $F$ is a single edge, this becomes the rainbow matching problem introduced by Schiermeyer~\cite{Sch04} and Özkahya--Young~\cite{OY13}. We conduct a systematic study of $\mathrm{ar}(n,tF)$ for the case where $t$ is much smaller than $\mathrm{ex}(n,F)/n^{r-1}$. Our first main result provides a reduction of $\mathrm{ar}(n,tF)$ to $\mathrm{ar}(n,2F)$ when $F$ is bounded and smooth, two properties satisfied by most previously studied hypergraphs. Complementing the first result, the second main result, which utilizes gaps between Turán numbers, determines $\mathrm{ar}(n,tF)$ for relatively smaller $t$. Together, these two results determine $\mathrm{ar}(n,tF)$ for a large class of hypergraphs. Additionally, the latter result has the advantage of being applicable to hypergraphs with unknown Turán densities, such as the famous tetrahedron $K_{4}^{3}$.

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arXiv2024

Strong stability from vertex-extendability and applications in generalized Turán problems

Extending the work of Liu--Mubayi--Reiher~\cite{LMR23unif} on hypergraph Turán problems, we introduce the notion of vertex-extendability for general extremal problems on hypergraphs and develop an axiomatized framework for proving strong stability for extremal problems satisfying certain properties. This framework simplifies the typically complex and tedious process of obtaining stability and exact results for extremal problems into a much simpler task of verifying their vertex-extendability. We present several applications of this method in generalized Turán problems including the Erdős Pentagon Problem, hypergraph Turán-goodness, and generalized Turán problems of hypergraphs whose shadow is complete multipartite. These results significantly strengthen and extend previous results of Erdős~\cite{Erdos62}, Győri--János--Simonovits~\cite{GPS91}, Grzesik~\cite{Gre12}, Hatami--Hladký--Kráľ--Norine--Razborov~\cite{HHKNR13}, Morrison--Nir--Norin--Rzążewski--Wesolek~\cite{MNNRPW23}, Gerbner--Palmer~\cite{GP22}, and others.

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arXiv2024

A criterion for Andrásfai--Erdős--Sós type theorems and applications

The classical Andrásfai--Erdős--Sós Theorem states that for $\ell\ge 2$, every $n$-vertex $K_{\ell+1}$-free graph with minimum degree greater than $\frac{3\ell-4}{3\ell-1}n$ must be $\ell$-partite. We establish a simple criterion for $r$-graphs, $r \geq 2$, to exhibit an Andrásfai--Erdős--Sós type property, also known as degree-stability. This leads to a classification of most previously studied hypergraph families with this property. An immediate application of this result, combined with a general theorem by Keevash--Lenz--Mubayi, solves the spectral Turán problems for a large class of hypergraphs. For every $r$-graph $F$ with degree-stability, there is a simple algorithm to decide the $F$-freeness of an $n$-vertex $r$-graph with minimum degree greater than $(π(F) - \varepsilon_F)\binom{n}{r-1}$ in time $O(n^r)$, where $\varepsilon_F >0$ is a constant. In particular, for the complete graph $K_{\ell+1}$, we can take $\varepsilon_{K_{\ell+1}} = (3\ell^2-\ell)^{-1}$, and this bound is tight up to some multiplicative constant factor unless $\mathbf{W[1]} = \mathbf{FPT}$. Based on a result by Chen--Huang--Kanj--Xia, we further show that for every fixed $C > 0$, this problem cannot be solved in time $n^{o(\ell)}$ if we replace $\varepsilon_{K_{\ell+1}}$ with $(C\ell)^{-1}$ unless $\mathbf{ETH}$ fails. Furthermore, we apply the degree-stability of $K_{\ell+1}$ to decide the $K_{\ell+1}$-freeness of graphs whose size is close to the Turán bound in time $(\ell+1)n^2$, partially improving a recent result by Fomin--Golovach--Sagunov--Simonov. As an intermediate step, we show that for a specific class of $r$-graphs $F$, the (surjective) $F$-coloring problem can be solved in time $O(n^r)$, provided the input $r$-graph has $n$ vertices and a large minimum degree, refining several previous results.

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arXiv2024

A generalized Turán extension of the Deza--Erdős--Frankl Theorem

For an integer $r \ge 3$ and a subset $L \subset [0,r-1]$, a graph $G$ is $(K_{r}, L)$-intersecting if the number of vertices in the intersection of every pair of $K_r$ in $G$ belongs to $L$. We study the maximum number of $K_r$ in an $n$-vertex $(K_{r}, L)$-intersecting graphs. The celebrated Ruzsa--Szemerédi Theorem corresponds to the case $r=3$ and $L = \{0,1\}$. For general $L$ with $2 \le |L| \le r-1$, we establish the upper bound $\left(1-\frac{1}{3r}\right) \prod_{\ell \in L}\frac{n-\ell}{r- \ell}$ for large $n$, which improves the bound provided by the celebrated Deza--Erdős--Frankl Theorem by a factor of $1-\frac{1}{3r}$. In the special case where $L = \{t, t+1, \ldots, r-1\}$, we derive the tight upper bound for large $n$ and establish a corresponding stability result. This is an extension of the seminal Erdős--Ko--Rado Theorem on $t$-intersecting systems to the generalized Turán setting. Our proof for the Deza--Erdős--Frankl part involves an interesting combination of the $Δ$-system method and Turán's theorem. Meanwhile, for the Erdős--Ko--Rado part, we employ the stability method, which relies on a theorem of Frankl regarding $t$-intersecting systems.

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arXiv2023

Hypergraphs with infinitely many extremal constructions

We give the first exact and stability results for a hypergraph Turán problem with infinitely many extremal constructions that are far from each other in edit-distance. This includes an example of triple systems with Turán density $2/9$, thus answering some questions posed by the third and fourth authors and Reiher about the feasible region of hypergraphs. Our results also provide extremal constructions whose shadow density is a transcendental number. Our novel approach is to construct certain multilinear polynomials that attain their maximum (in the standard simplex) on a line segment and then to use these polynomials to define an operation on hypergraphs that gives extremal constructions.

math.CO↗

arXiv2023

Many vertex-disjoint even cycles of fixed length in a graph

For every integer $k \ge 3$, we determine the extremal structure of an $n$-vertex graph with at most $t$ vertex-disjoint copies of $C_{2k}$ when $n$ is sufficiently large and $t$ lies in the interval $\left[\frac{\mathrm{ex}(n,C_{2k})}{\varepsilon n}, \varepsilon n\right]$, where $\varepsilon>0$ is a constant depending only on $k$. The question for $k = 2$ and $t = o\left(\frac{\mathrm{ex}(n,C_{2k})}{n}\right)$ was explored in prior work~\cite{HHLLYZ23a}, revealing different extremal structures in these cases. Our result can be viewed as an extension of the theorems by Egawa~\cite{Ega96} and Verstraëte~\cite{Ver03}, where the focus was on the existence of many vertex-disjoint cycles of the same length without any length constraints.

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arXiv2023

A step towards a general density Corrádi--Hajnal Theorem

For a nondegenerate $r$-graph $F$, large $n$, and $t$ in the regime $[0, c_{F} n]$, where $c_F>0$ is a constant depending only on $F$, we present a general approach for determining the maximum number of edges in an $n$-vertex $r$-graph that does not contain $t+1$ vertex-disjoint copies of $F$. In fact, our method results in a rainbow version of the above result and includes a characterization of the extremal constructions. Our approach applies to many well-studied hypergraphs (including graphs) such as the edge-critical graphs, the Fano plane, the generalized triangles, hypergraph expansions, the expanded triangles, and hypergraph books. Our results extend old results of Simonovits~\cite{SI68} and Moon~\cite{Moon68} on complete graphs and can be viewed as a step towards a general density version of the classical Corrádi--Hajnal Theorem~\cite{CH63}.

math.CO↗

arXiv2023

Hypergraph Turán densities can have arbitrarily large algebraic degree

Grosu [On the algebraic and topological structure of the set of Turán densities. \emph{J. Combin. Theory Ser. B} \textbf{118} (2016) 137--185] asked if there exist an integer $r\ge 3$ and a finite family of $r$-graphs whose Turán density, as a real number, has (algebraic) degree greater than~$r-1$. In this note we show that, for all integers $r\ge 3$ and $d$, there exists a finite family of $r$-graphs whose Turán density has degree at least~$d$, thus answering Grosu's question in a strong form.

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arXiv2023

Turán problems in pseudorandom graphs

Given a graph $F$, we consider the problem of determining the densest possible pseudorandom graph that contains no copy of $F$. We provide an embedding procedure that improves a general result of Conlon, Fox, and Zhao which gives an upper bound on the density. In particular, our result implies that optimally pseudorandom graphs with density greater than $n^{-1/3}$ must contain a copy of the Peterson graph, while the previous best result gives the bound $n^{-1/4}$. Moreover, we conjecture that the exponent $1/3$ in our bound is tight. We also construct the densest known pseudorandom $K_{2,3}$-free graphs that are also triangle-free. Finally, we obtain the densest known construction of clique-free pseudorandom graphs due to Bishnoi, Ihringer and Pepe in a novel way and give a different proof that they have no large clique.

math.CO↗

arXiv2022

A unified approach to hypergraph stability

We present a method which provides a unified framework for most stability theorems that have been proved in graph and hypergraph theory. Our main result reduces stability for a large class of hypergraph problems to the simpler question of checking that a hypergraph $\mathcal H$ with large minimum degree that omits the forbidden structures is vertex-extendable. This means that if $v$ is a vertex of $\mathcal H$ and ${\mathcal H} -v$ is a subgraph of the extremal configuration(s), then $\mathcal H$ is also a subgraph of the extremal configuration(s). In many cases vertex-extendability is quite easy to verify. We illustrate our approach by giving new short proofs of hypergraph stability results of Pikhurko, Hefetz-Keevash, Brandt-Irwin-Jiang, Bene Watts-Norin-Yepremyan and others. Since our method always yields minimum degree stability, which is the strongest form of stability, in some of these cases our stability results are stronger than what was known earlier. Along the way, we clarify the different notions of stability that have been previously studied.

math.CO↗

arXiv2022

The feasible region of induced graphs

The feasible region $Ω_{\rm ind}(F)$ of a graph $F$ is the collection of points $(x,y)$ in the unit square such that there exists a sequence of graphs whose edge densities approach $x$ and whose induced $F$-densities approach $y$. A complete description of $Ω_{\rm ind}(F)$ is not known for any $F$ with at least four vertices that is not a clique or an independent set. The feasible region provides a lot of combinatorial information about $F$. For example, the supremum of $y$ over all $(x,y)\in Ω_{\rm ind}(F)$ is the inducibility of $F$ and $Ω_{\rm ind}(K_r)$ yields the Kruskal-Katona and clique density theorems. We begin a systematic study of $Ω_{\rm ind}(F)$ by proving some general statements about the shape of $Ω_{\rm ind}(F)$ and giving results for some specific graphs $F$. Many of our theorems apply to the more general setting of quantum graphs. For example, we prove a bound for quantum graphs that generalizes an old result of Bollobás for the number of cliques in a graph with given edge density. We also consider the problems of determining $Ω_{\rm ind}(F)$ when $F=K_r^-$, $F$ is a star, or $F$ is a complete bipartite graph. In the case of $K_r^-$ our results sharpen those predicted by the edge-statistics conjecture of Alon et. al. while also extending a theorem of Hirst for $K_4^-$ that was proved using computer aided techniques and flag algebras. The case of the 4-cycle seems particularly interesting and we conjecture that $Ω_{\rm ind}(C_4)$ is determined by the solution to the triangle density problem, which has been solved by Razborov.

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arXiv2022

Tight query complexity bounds for learning graph partitions

Given a partition of a graph into connected components, the membership oracle asserts whether any two vertices of the graph lie in the same component or not. We prove that for $n\ge k\ge 2$, learning the components of an $n$-vertex hidden graph with $k$ components requires at least $(k-1)n-\binom k2$ membership queries. Our result improves on the best known information-theoretic bound of $Ω(n\log k)$ queries, and exactly matches the query complexity of the algorithm introduced by [Reyzin and Srivastava, 2007] for this problem. Additionally, we introduce an oracle, with access to which one can learn the number of components of $G$ in asymptotically fewer queries than learning the full partition, thus answering another question posed by the same authors. Lastly, we introduce a more applicable version of this oracle, and prove asymptotically tight bounds of $\widetildeΘ(m)$ queries for both learning and verifying an $m$-edge hidden graph $G$ using it.

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arXiv2021

A note on explicit constructions of designs

An $(n,r,s)$-system is an $r$-uniform hypergraph on $n$ vertices such that every pair of edges has an intersection of size less than $s$. Using probabilistic arguments, Rödl and Šiňajová showed that for all fixed integers $r> s \ge 2$, there exists an $(n,r,s)$-system with independence number $O\left(n^{1-δ+o(1)}\right)$ for some optimal constant $δ>0$ only related to $r$ and $s$. We show that for certain pairs $(r,s)$ with $s\le r/2$ there exists an explicit construction of an $(n,r,s)$-system with independence number $O\left(n^{1-ε}\right)$, where $ε> 0$ is an absolute constant only related to $r$ and $s$. Previously this was known only for $s>r/2$ by results of Chattopadhyay and Goodman

math.CO↗

arXiv2021

Stability theorems for some Kruskal-Katona type results

The classical Kruskal-Katona theorem gives a tight upper bound for the size of an $r$-uniform hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$ as a function of the size of its shadow. Its stability version was obtained by Keevash who proved that if the size of $\mathcal{H}$ is close to the maximum, then $\mathcal{H}$ is structurally close to a complete $r$-uniform hypergraph. We prove similar stability results for two classes of hypergraphs whose extremal properties have been investigated by many researchers: the cancellative hypergraphs and hypergraphs without expansion of cliques.

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arXiv2021

Cancellative hypergraphs and Steiner triple systems

A triple system is cancellative if it does not contain three distinct sets $A,B,C$ such that the symmetric difference of $A$ and $B$ is contained in $C$. We show that every cancellative triple system $\mathcal{H}$ that satisfies certain inequality between the sizes of $\mathcal{H}$ and its shadow must be structurally close to the balanced blowup of some Steiner triple system. Our result contains a stability theorem for cancellative triple systems due to Keevash and Mubayi as a special case. It also implies that the boundary of the feasible region of cancellative triple systems has infinitely many local maxima, thus giving the first example showing this phenomenon.

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arXiv2021

A hypergraph Turán problem with no stability

A fundamental barrier in extremal hypergraph theory is the presence of many near-extremal constructions with very different structures. Indeed, the classical constructions due to Kostochka imply that the notorious extremal problem for the tetrahedron exhibits this phenomenon assuming Turán's conjecture. Our main result is to construct a finite family of triple systems $\mathcal{M}$, determine its Turán number, and prove that there are two near-extremal $\mathcal{M}$-free constructions that are far from each other in edit-distance. This is the first extremal result for a hypergraph family that fails to have a corresponding stability theorem.

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arXiv2021

Hypergraphs with many extremal configurations

For every positive integer $t$ we construct a finite family of triple systems ${\mathcal M}_t$, determine its Turán number, and show that there are $t$ extremal ${\mathcal M}_t$-free configurations that are far from each other in edit-distance. We also prove a strong stability theorem: every ${\mathcal M}_t$-free triple system whose size is close to the maximum size is a subgraph of one of these $t$ extremal configurations after removing a small proportion of vertices. This is the first stability theorem for a hypergraph problem with an arbitrary (finite) number of extremal configurations. Moreover, the extremal hypergraphs have very different shadow sizes (unlike the case of the famous Turán tetrahedron conjecture). Hence a corollary of our main result is that the boundary of the feasible region of ${\mathcal M}_t$ has exactly $t$ global maxima.

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