arXiv subjects

Xizhi Liu

Publications and source records attributed to Xizhi Liu.

81 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

Independent sets in hypergraphs omitting an intersection

A $k$-uniform hypergraph with $n$ vertices is an $(n,k,\ell)$-omitting system if it does not contain two edges whose intersection has size exactly $\ell$. If in addition it does not contain two edges whose intersection has size greater than $\ell$, then it is an $(n,k,\ell)$-system. Rödl and Šiňajová proved a lower bound for the independence number of $(n,k,\ell)$-systems that is sharp in order of magnitude for fixed $2 \le \ell \le k-1$. We consider the same question for the larger class of $(n,k,\ell)$-omitting systems. For $k\le 2\ell+1$, we believe that the behavior is similar to the case of $(n,k,\ell)$-systems and prove a nontrivial lower bound for the first open case $\ell=k-2$. For $k>2\ell+1$ we give new lower and upper bounds which show that the minimum independence number of $(n,k,\ell)$-omitting systems has a very different behavior than for $(n,k,\ell)$-systems. Our lower bound for $\ell=k-2$ uses some adaptations of the random greedy independent set algorithm, and our upper bounds (constructions) for $k> 2\ell+1$ are obtained from some pseudorandom graphs. We also prove some related results where we forbid more than two edges with a prescribed common intersection size and this leads to some applications in Ramsey theory. For example, we obtain good bounds for the Ramsey number $r_{k}(F^{k},t)$, where $F^{k}$ is the $k$-uniform Fan. Here the behavior is quite different than the case $k=2$ which reduces to the classical graph Ramsey number $r(3,t)$.

math.CO↗

arXiv2020

Sparse halves in $K_4$-free graphs

A conjecture of Chung and Graham states that every $K_4$-free graph on $n$ vertices contains a vertex set of size $\lfloor n/2 \rfloor$ that spans at most $n^2/18$ edges. We make the first step toward this conjecture by showing that it holds for all regular graphs.

math.CO↗

arXiv2020

A note on hypergraphs without non-trivial intersecting subgraphs

A hypergraph $\mathcal{F}$ is non-trivial intersecting if every two edges in it have a nonempty intersection but no vertex is contained in all edges of $\mathcal{F}$. Mubayi and Verstraëte showed that for every $k \ge d+1 \ge 3$ and $n \ge (d+1)n/d$ every $k$-graph $\mathcal{H}$ on $n$ vertices without a non-trivial intersecting subgraph of size $d+1$ contains at most $\binom{n-1}{k-1}$ edges. They conjectured that the same conclusion holds for all $d \ge k \ge 4$ and sufficiently large $n$. We confirm their conjecture by proving a stronger statement. They also conjectured that for $m \ge 4$ and sufficiently large $n$ the maximum size of a $3$-graph on $n$ vertices without a non-trivial intersecting subgraph of size $3m+1$ is achieved by certain Steiner systems. We give a construction with more edges showing that their conjecture is not true in general.

math.CO↗

arXiv2020

Structural results for conditionally intersecting families and some applications

Let $k\ge d\ge 3$ be fixed. Let $\mathcal{F}$ be a $k$-uniform family on $[n]$. Then $\mathcal{F}$ is $(d,s)$-conditionally intersecting if it does not contain $d$ sets with union of size at most $s$ and empty intersection. Answering a question of Frankl, we present some structural results for families that are $(d,s)$-conditionally intersecting with $s\ge 2k+d-3$, and families that are $(k,2k)$-conditionally intersecting. As applications of our structural results, we present some new proofs to the upper bounds for the size of the following $k$-uniform families on $[n]$. (a) $(d,2k+d-3)$-conditionally intersecting families with $n\ge 3k^5$. (b) $(k,2k)$-conditionally intersecting families with $n\ge k^2/(k-1)$. (c) Nonintersecting $(3,2k)$-conditionally intersecting families with $n\ge 3k\binom{2k}{k}$. Our results for $(c)$ confirms a conjecture of Mammoliti and Britz for the case $d=3$.

math.CO↗

arXiv2020

Tight bounds for Katona's shadow intersection theorem

A fundamental result in extremal set theory is Katona's shadow intersection theorem, which extends the Kruskal-Katona theorem by giving a lower bound on the size of the shadow of an intersecting family of $k$-sets in terms of its size. We improve this classical result and a related result of Ahlswede, Aydinian, and Khachatrian by proving tight bounds for families that can be quite small. For example, when $k=3$ our result is sharp for all families with $n$ points and at least $3n-7$ triples. Katona's theorem was extended by Frankl to families with matching number $s$. We improve Frankl's result by giving tight bounds for large $n$.

math.CO↗

arXiv2020

On a generalized Erdős-Rademacher problem

The triangle covering number of a graph is the minimum number of vertices that hit all triangles. Given positive integers $s,t$ and an $n$-vertex graph $G$ with $\lfloor n^2/4 \rfloor +t$ edges and triangle covering number $s$, we determine (for large $n$) sharp bounds on the minimum number of triangles in $G$ and also describe the extremal constructions. Similar results are proved for cliques of larger size and color critical graphs. This extends classical work of Rademacher, Erd\H os, and Lovász-Simonovits whose results apply only to $s \le t$. Our results also address two conjectures of Xiao and Katona. We prove one of them and give a counterexample and prove a modified version of the other conjecture.

math.CO↗

arXiv2019

The feasible region of hypergraphs

Let $\mathcal{F}$ be a family of $r$-uniform hypergraphs. The feasible region $Ω(\mathcal{F})$ of $\mathcal{F}$ is the set of points $(x,y)$ in the unit square such that there exists a sequence of $\mathcal{F}$-free $r$-uniform hypergraphs whose edge density approaches $x$ and whose shadow density approaches $y$. The feasible region provides a lot of combinatorial information, for example, the supremum of $y$ over all $(x,y) \in Ω(\mathcal{F})$ is the Turán density $π(\mathcal{F})$, and $Ω(\emptyset)$ gives the Kruskal-Katona theorem. We undertake a systematic study of $Ω(\mathcal{F})$, and prove that $Ω(\mathcal{F})$ is completely determined by a left-continuous almost everywhere differentiable function; and moreover, there exists an $\mathcal{F}$ for which this function is not continuous. We also extend some old related theorems. For example, we generalize a result of Fisher and Ryan to hypergraphs and extend a classical result of Bollobás by almost completely determining the feasible region for cancellative triple systems.

math.CO↗

arXiv2019

$d$-cluster-free sets with a given matching number

Let $3\le d\le k$ and $ν\ge 0$ be fixed and $\mathcal{F}\subset\binom{[n]}{k}$. The matching number of $\mathcal{F}$, denoted by $ν(\mathcal{F})$, is the maximum number of pairwise disjoint sets in $\mathcal{F}$, and $\mathcal{F}$ is $d$-cluster-free if it does not contain $d$ sets with the union of size at most $2k$ and empty intersection. In this paper, we give a lower bound and an upper bound for the maximum size of a $d$-cluster-free family with a matching number at least $ν+1$. In particular, our result of the case $ν=1$ settles a conjecture of Mammoliti and Britz. We also introduce a Turán problem in hypergraphs that allows multiple edges, which may be of independent interest.

math.CO↗

arXiv2019

New Short Proofs to Some Stability Theorems

We present new short proofs to both the exact and the stability results of two extremal problems. The first one is the extension of Turán's theorem in hypergraphs, which was firstly studied by Mubayi $\cite{MU06}$. The second one is about the cancellative hypergraphs, which was firstly studied by Bollobás $\cite{BO74}$ and later by Keevash and Mubayi $\cite{KM04}$. Our proofs are concise and straightforward, but give a sharper version of stability theorems to both problems.

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