A Refutation of the Pach-Tardos Conjecture for 0-1 Matrices

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Pettie, Seth, Tardos, Gábor
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2024
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author Pettie, Seth
Tardos, Gábor
author_facet Pettie, Seth
Tardos, Gábor
contents The theory of forbidden 0-1 matrices generalizes Turan-style (bipartite) subgraph avoidance, Davenport-Schinzel theory, and Zarankiewicz-type problems, and has been influential in many areas, such as discrete and computational geometry, the analysis of self-adjusting data structures, and the development of the graph parameter twin width. The foremost open problems in this area is to resolve the Pach-Tardos conjecture from 2005, which states that if a forbidden pattern $P\in\{0,1\}^{k\times l}$ is the bipartite incidence matrix of an acyclic graph (forest), then $\mathrm{Ex}(P,n) = O(n\log^{C_P} n)$, where $C_P$ is a constant depending only on $P$. This conjecture has been confirmed on many small patterns, specifically all $P$ with weight at most 5, and all but two with weight 6. The main result of this paper is a clean refutation of the Pach-Tardos conjecture. Specifically, we prove that $\mathrm{Ex}(S_0,n),\mathrm{Ex}(S_1,n) \geq n2^{Ω(\sqrt{\log n})}$, where $S_0,S_1$ are the outstanding weight-6 patterns. We also prove sharp bounds on the entire class of alternating patterns $(P_t)$, specifically that for every $t\geq 2$, $\mathrm{Ex}(P_t,n)=Θ(n(\log n/\log\log n)^t)$. This is the first proof of an asymptotically sharp bound that is $ω(n\log n)$.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_02638
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Refutation of the Pach-Tardos Conjecture for 0-1 Matrices
Pettie, Seth
Tardos, Gábor
Combinatorics
Discrete Mathematics
The theory of forbidden 0-1 matrices generalizes Turan-style (bipartite) subgraph avoidance, Davenport-Schinzel theory, and Zarankiewicz-type problems, and has been influential in many areas, such as discrete and computational geometry, the analysis of self-adjusting data structures, and the development of the graph parameter twin width. The foremost open problems in this area is to resolve the Pach-Tardos conjecture from 2005, which states that if a forbidden pattern $P\in\{0,1\}^{k\times l}$ is the bipartite incidence matrix of an acyclic graph (forest), then $\mathrm{Ex}(P,n) = O(n\log^{C_P} n)$, where $C_P$ is a constant depending only on $P$. This conjecture has been confirmed on many small patterns, specifically all $P$ with weight at most 5, and all but two with weight 6. The main result of this paper is a clean refutation of the Pach-Tardos conjecture. Specifically, we prove that $\mathrm{Ex}(S_0,n),\mathrm{Ex}(S_1,n) \geq n2^{Ω(\sqrt{\log n})}$, where $S_0,S_1$ are the outstanding weight-6 patterns. We also prove sharp bounds on the entire class of alternating patterns $(P_t)$, specifically that for every $t\geq 2$, $\mathrm{Ex}(P_t,n)=Θ(n(\log n/\log\log n)^t)$. This is the first proof of an asymptotically sharp bound that is $ω(n\log n)$.
title A Refutation of the Pach-Tardos Conjecture for 0-1 Matrices
topic Combinatorics
Discrete Mathematics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.02638