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arXiv2026

Synchronization Strings over the Optimal Alphabet

Synchronization strings provide deterministic position labels for recovering coordinates after insertions and deletions. Haeupler and Shahrasbi introduced these objects, and subsequent work proved that four symbols suffice for some fixed parameter epsilon < 1, whereas two symbols cannot support arbitrarily long synchronization strings. We resolve the remaining ternary case: every length admits a ternary 2001/2002-synchronization string. Thus three is the exact minimum constant alphabet size. A computer-assisted refinement based on a larger 54-uniform family yields ternary epsilon-synchronization strings for every epsilon > 215/216. The previous four-symbol construction uses a ternary square-free backbone to exclude short repetitions and a fourth symbol to carry long-range synchronization marks. Our main technical contribution is a local-entropy transfer theorem: every square-free block-local source with a positive interval conditional min-entropy rate supports synchronization strings with a fixed gap. We instantiate this theorem using occurrence-wise branching in a Brinkhuis family. Every outcome remains ternary and square-free, while every long interval retains linear conditional min-entropy after all choices outside it are exposed. A deletion-ball estimate converts this entropy into an exponentially small probability of a near-complete common subsequence between adjacent intervals, and an asymmetric Lovasz Local Lemma enforces all interval constraints simultaneously. The same framework also yields exponentially many valid words, synchronization circles, and synchronization within a class of extremal square-free words. Adding constraints on distant intervals gives a Las Vegas construction in expected O(n^2 log^3(n+2)) time.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2026

The Maximum Mutual Visibility Set on a Cactus Graph and the Self-stabilizing Constructions

Given a graph $G=(V,E)$, let $S$ ($\subseteq V$) be a set of vertices. Two vertices are \emph{mutually visible} if there exists a shortest path in $G$ between them that does not contain any other vertex of $S$. A set $S$ is a \emph{Mutual Visibility Set} (\MVS) if every pair of vertices in $S$ is mutually visible. The concept of \MVS s in graphs has attracted significant attention since its introduction, as it provides an important structural property of graphs. However, determining a maximum \MVS\ in general graphs is computationally intractable; the decision problem of whether a graph admits an \MVS\ of size at least $k$ has been shown to be \emph{NP-complete}. Thus, prior work has focused on finding maximal \MVS s or restricting attention to specific graph classes. Cactus graphs form a fundamental low-treewidth class, yet the maximum \MVS\ problem for this class remains open. In this paper, we first determine the size of maximum \MVS~in cactus graphs, and introduce two self-stabilizing algorithms that construct such sets. The first algorithm uses a single BFS tree and stabilizes in $O(D)$ rounds with $O(\log n)$ bits per process on average; the second one uses parallel BFS trees and stabilizes in $O(|C_{\max}|+|T_{\max}|)$ rounds, which we show to be asymptotically tight as a function of these two parameters, even on graphs where $|C_{\max}|+|T_{\max}| = o(D)$.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2026

Clique Number of Tournaments II

The directed clique number $\vecω(T)$ of a tournament $T$ is the minimum, over all orderings of the vertices of $T$, of the clique number of the graph whose edges are the arcs that point backward with respect to the ordering. In this paper, we prove that, for every integer $k \geq 3$, deciding whether $\vecω(T) \leq k$ is NP-complete. This answers a question of Nguyen, Scott, and Seymour, and contrasts with the classical undirected setting, where deciding whether $ω(G) \leq k$ is polynomial-time solvable for every fixed integer $k$. On the other hand, we give a polynomial-time algorithm distinguishing tournaments with $\vecω(T) \leq 2$ from those with $\vecω(T) > 100$. We also study the tournament analogue of the Gyárfás--Sumner conjecture. We construct new $\vecχ$-bounding tournaments and thereby prove a conjecture of Aboulker, Aubian, Charbit, and Lopes stating that every class of tournaments with bounded twin-width is $\vecχ$-bounded. We then exhibit new tournaments that are not $\vecχ$-bounding, disproving another conjecture of Aboulker, Aubian, Charbit, and Lopes, as well as two conjectures of Kim. Finally, we present infinite families of 3-$\vecω$-critical and 4-$\vecω$-critical tournaments.

math.CO↗

arXiv2026

Random Schreier graphs as expanders

Expander graphs, due to their mixing properties, are useful in many algorithms and combinatorial constructions. One can produce an expander graph with high probability by taking a random graph (e.g., the union of $d$ random bijections for a bipartite graph of degree $d$). This construction is much simpler than all known explicit constructions of expanders and gives graphs with good mixing properties (small second largest eigenvalue) with high probability. However, from the practical viewpoint, it uses too many random bits. The natural idea is to restrict the class of the bijections that we use. For example, if both sides are vector spaces $\mathbb{F}_q^k$ over a finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$, we may consider only \emph{linear} bijections, making the number of random bits polynomial in $k$ (and not $q^k$). In this paper we provide some experimental data that shows that this approach conserves the mixing properties (the second eigenvalue) for several types of graphs (undirected regular and biregular bipartite graphs). We also prove some upper bounds for the second eigenvalue (though they are quite weak compared with the experimental results) and a lower bound for a special class of graphs. Finally, we discuss the possibility to decrease the number of random bits further by using Toeplitz matrices; our experiments show that this change makes the mixing properties only marginally worse while the number of random bits decreases significantly.

math.CO↗

arXiv2026

A sharp version of Talagrand's selector process conjecture, with applications to rounding fractional covers and Bernoulli Sudakov minoration

We prove a sharp version of Talagrand's selector process conjecture. Roughly speaking, given any collection of nonnegative weight vectors whose support form a family that is not $p$-small, a random set of density $O(sp)$ captures all but a $2^{-s}$ fraction of weight of some vector with high probability. This gives a common strengthening of Talagrand's selector process conjecture and the Kahn--Kalai conjecture. We give two applications of this result. First, towards a conjecture of Talagrand on the equivalence of expectation thresholds and fractional expectation thresholds, we show that a $p$-small fractional cover supported on sets of size at most $t$ can be rounded to a $cp/\log(2t)$-small integral cover. As a corollary, we show that the fractional and integral expectation thresholds are separated by at most a $\log \log$ factor. Second, we prove a Sudakov minoration principle for general positive selector processes, which in particular resolves a problem of Talagrand on Sudakov minoration for the product Bernoulli measure.

math.CO↗

arXiv2026

The list size of random linear codes at capacity

Let $C \le \mathbb{F}_q^n$ be a uniformly random $\mathbb{F}_q$-linear code of rate $1 - h_q(ρ) - \varepsilon$, and let $L^*(C,ρ)$ be the least $L$ such that every Hamming ball of relative radius $ρ$ contains at most $L$ codewords of $C$. That $L^* = Θ_{q,ρ}(1/\varepsilon)$ has been known since work of Guruswami, Håstad and Kopparty and of Guruswami and Narayanan. Guruswami, Li, Mosheiff, Resch, Silas and Wootters proved that the constant in front of $1/\varepsilon$ is at least $h_q(ρ)$ for all $q$, along with an upper bound special to $q = 2$ which narrowed $L^*$ to within three consecutive integers in that case. But for $q \ge 3$ no upper bound with the correct constant was known. We determine $L^*$ for every prime power $q$. Let $ζ:= h_q(ρ)/\varepsilon$. For every sufficiently small $\varepsilon$, with probability $1-o(1)$ over the choice of $C$, $$L^*(C,ρ) = \lceil ζ\rceil,$$ unless the fractional part of $ζ$ is at most $q^{-Ω_{q,ρ}(ζ)}$, in which case $L^*(C,ρ)$ is $\lfloor ζ\rfloor$ or $\lfloor ζ\rfloor + 1$. By the threshold characterization of random linear codes due to Mosheiff, Resch, Ron-Zewi, Silas and Wootters, both bounds reduce to a two-sided estimate of a single quantity $V(q,L,ρ)$, where $1-V(q,L,ρ)$ is the threshold rate for $(ρ,L)$-list-decodability. We prove for all large $L$: $$h_q(ρ)(1 + 1/L) - q^{-Ω_{q,ρ}(L)} \le V(q,L,ρ) \le h_q(ρ)(1 + 1/L).$$ The upper bound rests on a new entropy inequality for sparse random vectors under pairwise non-proportional linear constraints, proved with the Erdős-Rado sunflower lemma. The lower bound is an exact analysis of the distribution introduced by Guruswami, Li, Mosheiff, Resch, Silas and Wootters.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2026

Set families: restricted distances via restricted intersections

Denote by $f_D(n)$ the maximum size of a set family $\mathcal{F}$ on $[n] = \{1, \dots, n\}$ with distance set $D$. That is, $|A \bigtriangleup B| \in D$ holds for every pair of distinct sets $A, B \in \mathcal{F}$. Kleitman's celebrated discrete isodiametric inequality states that $f_D(n)$ is maximized at Hamming balls of radius $d/2$ when $D = \{1, \dots, d\}$. We study the generalization where $D$ is a set of arithmetic progression and determine $f_D(n)$ asymptotically for all homogeneous $D$. In the special case when $D$ is an interval, our result confirms a conjecture of Huang, Klurman, and Pohoata. Moreover, we demonstrate a dichotomy in the growth of $f_D(n)$, showing linear growth in $n$ when $D$ is a non-homogeneous arithmetic progression. Different from previous combinatorial and spectral approaches, we deduce our results by converting the restricted distance problems to restricted intersection problems. Our proof ideas can be adapted to prove upper bounds on $t$-distance sets in Hamming cubes (also known as binary $t$-codes), which has been extensively studied by algebraic combinatorialists community, improving previous bounds from polynomial methods and optimization approaches.

math.CO↗

arXiv2026

Split-Free Cable Expressions: Active Neighborhood Profiles and Linear Rank-Width

We introduce split-free cable expressions and their sequential restriction. Live cables are vertex blocks that future operations cannot split. The main result identifies sequential split-free cable width, up to an additive two, with active neighborhood-width, the minimum number of distinct nonzero future-neighborhood classes across a linear layout. The lower bound extracts such a layout from every cable play and includes a parity argument for prefixes inside a birth group. The upper bound compiles any active-neighborhood layout into a singleton-birth play. This gives an exponential upper bound and a linear lower bound in terms of linear rank-width. We prove that the complement of the seven-vertex cycle has linear rank-width two and sequential cable width exactly eight. This disproves the proposed affine upper estimate already at rank two. We also prove an unbounded separation between branching expression width and sequential width on trees.

math.CO↗

arXiv2026

Simple and Almost Non-Adaptive $\frac{1}{2}$-Approximation for Matroid Prophet Inequalities

Prophet inequalities are a fundamental model for online decision-making under uncertainty. For matroid constraints, Kleinberg and Weinberg gave a tight $\frac{1}{2}$-approximation using adaptive thresholds, while Feldman, Svensson, and Zenklusen obtained a $\frac{1}{4}$-approximation via an online contention resolution scheme (OCRS). We give the first almost non-adaptive algorithm for general matroid prophet inequalities achieving the optimal $\frac{1}{2}$ guarantee, in fact with respect to the stronger ex-ante relaxation. Starting from an optimal ex-ante solution $x$, we reduce to a Bernoulli instance, replace the original matroid by a stricter direct sum of minors, and assign fixed thresholds to the resulting components. Translating the rule back to the original distributions, an element $e$ can be accepted only when its realized value lies in its top $x_e$-quantile and adding it preserves the corresponding stricter matroid constraint. We also give a second almost non-adaptive $\frac{1}{2}$-approximation based on a different threshold rule. This formulation extends naturally to intersections of matroids and yields an almost non-adaptive $(q+1)$-approximation for prophet inequalities under the intersection of $q$ arbitrary matroids, again with respect to the ex-ante relaxation. This matches the previously known $(q+1)$ guarantee for intersections of $q$ partition matroids, due to Alon, Pollner, and Weinberg, while extending it to arbitrary matroids. For the intersection result, each matroid is replaced by a stricter direct sum of minors, and a common surplus vector determines fixed element thresholds across all $q$ constraints. We prove the existence of such a vector using Brouwer's fixed-point theorem and give a polynomial-time procedure to compute it.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2026

Determining a graph from its reconfiguration graph

Given a graph $G$ and a natural number $k$, the $k$-recolouring graph $\mathcal{C}_k(G)$ is the graph whose vertices are the $k$-colourings of $G$ and whose edges link pairs of colourings which differ at exactly one vertex of $G$. Recently, Hogan et al. proved that $G$ can be determined from $\mathcal{C}_k(G)$ provided $k$ is large enough (quadratic in the number of vertices of $G$). We improve this bound by showing that $k=χ(G)+1$ colours suffice, and provide examples of families of graphs for which $k=χ(G)$ colours do not suffice. We then extend this result to $k$-Kempe-recolouring graphs, whose vertices are again the $k$-colourings of a graph $G$ and whose edges link pairs of colourings which differ by swapping the two colours in a connected component of the subgraph induced by selecting those two colours. We show that $k=χ(G)+2$ colours suffice to determine $G$ in this case. Finally, we investigate the case of independent set reconfiguration, proving that in only a few trivial cases is one guaranteed to be able to determine a graph $G$.

math.CO↗

arXiv2026

Colorful Minors

We introduce the notion of colorful minors, which generalizes the classical concept of rooted minors in graphs. A $q$-colorful graph= is defined as a pair $(G, χ),$ where $G$ is a graph and $χ$ assigns to each vertex a (possibly empty) subset of at most $q$ colors. The colorful minor relation enhances the classical minor relation by merging color sets at contracted edges and allowing the removal of colors from vertices. This framework naturally models algorithmic problems involving graphs with (possibly overlapping) annotated vertex sets. We develop a structural theory for colorful minors by establishing three core theorems characterizing $\mathcal{H}$-colorful minor-free graphs, where $\mathcal{H}$ consists either of a clique or a grid with all vertices assigned all colors, or of grids with colors segregated and ordered on the outer face. Our results reveal that when exclusion is imposed not only on graphs but also to the way colors are distributed in them, a more refined structural landscape appears. On the algorithmic side, we deduce that colorful minor testing is fixed-parameter tractable. Together with the fact that the colorful minor relation forms a well-quasi-order, this implies that every colorful minor-monotone parameter on colorful graphs admits a fixed-parameter algorithm. Furthermore, we derive two algorithmic meta-theorems (AMTs) whose structural conditions are linked to extensions of treewidth and Hadwiger number on colorful graphs. Our results suggest how known AMTs can be extended to incorporate not only the structure of the input graph but also the way the colored vertices are distributed in it.

math.CO↗

arXiv2026

The Popular Dimension of Matchings

We study popular matchings in three classical settings: the house allocation problem, the marriage problem, and the roommates problem. In the popular matching problem, (a subset of) the vertices in a graph have preference orderings over their potential matches. A matching is popular if it gets a plurality of votes in a pairwise election against any other matching. Unfortunately, popular matchings typically do not exist. So we study a natural relaxation, namely popular winning sets which are a set of matchings that collectively get a plurality of votes in a pairwise election against any other matching. The $\textit{popular dimension}$ is the minimum cardinality of a popular winning set, in the worst case over the problem class. We prove that the popular dimension is exactly $2$ in the house allocation problem, even if the voters are weighted and ties are allowed in their preference lists. For the marriage problem and the roommates problem, we prove that the popular dimension is between $2$ and $3$, when the agents are weighted and/or their preferences orderings allow ties. In the special case where the agents are unweighted and have strict preference orderings, the popular dimension of the marriage problem is known to be exactly $1$ and we prove the popular dimension of the roommates problem is exactly $2$.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2026

Trade-off between spread and width for tree decompositions

The spread of a vertex $v$ in a tree decomposition is the number of bags that contain $v$. We study the trade-off between spread and width in tree decompositions, answering every open question from Wood [arXiv:2509.01140]. First, Wood asked for the infimum of $c > 0$ such that there exists $c'$ such that each graph $G$ has a tree decomposition of width $c \cdot tw(G)$ in which each vertex $v$ has spread at most $c'(d(v)+1)$. We show that the answer is $3$. Second, we prove a conjecture of Wood, stating that every tree-decomposition of the $(n \times n)$-grid with width $n$ has a vertex with spread $Ω(n)$. Finally, we answer the last question of Wood by showing that near-optimal average spread can be achieved simultaneously with width $O(tw(G))$.

math.CO↗

arXiv2026

An almost quadratic bound for the minimal excluded minors for a surface

As part of the graph minor project, Robertson and Seymour showed in 1990 that the class of graphs embeddable in a given surface can be characterized by a finite set of minimal excluded minors. However, the proof is purely existential and therefore provides no explicit information about these excluded minors. In 1993, Seymour established the first general upper bound on the order of such minimal excluded minors. Recently, Houdaigoui and Kawarabayashi improved this result by deriving a quasi-polynomial upper bound. Despite this advance, the gap between this bound and the known linear lower bound $Ω(g)$ (where $g$ denotes the genus) remains substantial. In particular, they conjectured that a polynomial upper bound should hold. In this paper, we confirm this conjecture by showing that the order of the minimal excluded minors for a surface of genus $g$ is $g^{2+o(1)}$. This result significantly narrows the gap between the known lower and upper bounds, bringing the asymptotic behavior much closer to the conjectured optimum. Our approach relies on a new structural property of minimal excluded minors. Let $G$ be a minimal excluded minor for a surface of Euler genus $g$. Houdaigoui and Kawarabayashi showed that $G$ contains $O(\log g)$ pairwise disjoint cycles that are contractible and nested in some embedding of $G$. We strengthen this result by proving a separator-based variant: for any contractible subgraph $H \subseteq G$ with a separator of size $s$ (with $H$ contained entirely in one side), the subgraph $H$ contains $O(\log s)$ disjoint cycles that are contractible and nested in some embedding of $G$. This allows us to replace a genus-dependent bound with a separator-dependent one, which is the main new ingredient in deriving our polynomial bound.

math.CO↗

arXiv2026

Expressivity of Contradiction Graphs

We study the contradiction graphs associated with a binary concept class. For a class $H\subseteq\{0,1\}^X$, the order-$m$ contradiction graph $G_m(H)$ has as vertices the $H$-realizable labeled sequences of length $m$, with two vertices adjacent when the two sequences assign opposite labels to some common domain point. First, we identify a graph-theoretic property that determines the threshold predicate $\operatorname{VCdim}(H)\ge m$. Consequently, the sequence $(G_m(H))_{m\ge1}$ determines the exact VC dimension and, in particular, distinguishes finite from infinite VC dimension, answering a question posed by Alon et al. (2024). We then generalize this result by proving that the sequence of contradiction graphs determines, up to signed relabeling, the realizable datasets of any fixed length. Thus, any learning-theoretic property determined by the realizable datasets of a fixed length and invariant under signed relabeling can be recovered from the contradiction graph sequence. As an application, we explicitly provide a characterization of Littlestone dimension.

stat.ML↗

arXiv2026

Binary X-rays of doubly stochastic matrices

The X-ray of a permutation is a sequence of sums along each diagonal of the associated permutation matrix. They satisfy certain necessary constraints on distribution of the values, which are conjectured to be sufficient when the sequence is binary. By re-expressing the constraints in a form that allows for real-valued relaxations, we prove that these binary sequences are always X-rays of doubly stochastic matrices.

math.CO↗

arXiv2026

On the Structure of $(\min,+)$ Convolution

The $(\min,+)$ convolution is a central problem in fine-grained complexity, and it remains open whether it can be computed in truly subquadratic time. We study it through tropical polynomials, where $(\min,+)$ convolution is exactly tropical polynomial multiplication. We introduce the tropical decomposition width, $\operatorname{tdw}(A)$, which measures how finely a tropical polynomial can be decomposed into factors of small degree. We prove two modular convexity theorems showing that bounded tropical decomposition width forces convexity on arithmetic progression subpolynomials. This yields deterministic algorithms for computing $a\otimes b$ in $$O\left(n\max(\operatorname{tdw}(a),\operatorname{tdw}(b))^2\right)$$ when $\max(\operatorname{tdw}(a),\operatorname{tdw}(b))$ is given, and in $$O\left(ne^{\min(\operatorname{tdw}(a),\operatorname{tdw}(b))(1+o(1))}\right)$$ without prior knowledge of the width. Neither algorithm requires a decomposition of the input sequences. The same structural ideas give a randomized algorithm for Multiple-Sequence $(\min,+)$ Convolution: given $k$ sequences of length at most $n$, their convolution can be computed in $$O\left(kn^2\sqrt{\min(k,n)}\log^{1.5}(kn)\right)$$ time, improving the natural $O(k^2n^2)$ bound. Finally, we introduce interpolation algebras for tropical polynomials and show that classes with bounded tropical decomposition width admit interpolation algebras of finite generating rank, whereas distinguishing all tropical polynomials of degree at most $n$ requires generating rank $\lfloor n/2\rfloor+1$. We also prove that tropical decomposition width cannot decrease under any flat $\mathbb T$-algebra extension. Together, these results connect the tractability of $(\min,+)$ convolution with structural rigidity in tropical polynomial multiplication.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2026

Improved bounds for the lazy cops and robbers on generalized hypercubes

In Lazy Cops and Robbers, at most one cop moves on each cop turn. We study the lazy cop number of the generalized hypercube $Q(n,m)$, whose vertex set is ${\{0,1,\ldots,m\}}^n$. For each fixed integer $m\geq2$, we prove the asymptotic upper bound $$c_{\mathrm{L}}(Q(n,m))=O\!\left(\frac{{(m+1)}^n}{n^{3/2}}\right).$$ This result improves the upper bound of Sim, Tan, and Wong by a factor of $\log n$. The proof combines a moving dominating-set argument with an explicit dominating-set construction inside the support classes of each level. As a separate domination result, we show that, for fixed integers $m\geq2$ and $d\geq1$, the Hamming graph $K_m^{\square k}$ has a distance-$d$ dominating set of asymptotic size $O(m^k/k^d)$. This order is optimal up to a constant factor.

math.CO↗