Blowups of triangle-free graphs

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Girão, António, Hunter, Zach, Wigderson, Yuval
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Girão, António
Hunter, Zach
Wigderson, Yuval
author_facet Girão, António
Hunter, Zach
Wigderson, Yuval
contents A highly influential result of Nikiforov states that if an $n$-vertex graph $G$ contains at least $γn^h$ copies of a fixed $h$-vertex graph $H$, then $G$ contains a blowup of $H$ of order $Ω_{γ,H}(\log n)$. While the dependence on $n$ is optimal, the correct dependence on $γ$ is unknown; all known proofs yield bounds that are polynomial in $γ$, but the best known upper bound, coming from random graphs, is only logarithmic in $γ$. It is a major open problem to narrow this gap. We prove that if $H$ is triangle-free, then the logarithmic behavior of the upper bound is the truth. That is, under the assumptions above, $G$ contains a blowup of $H$ of order $Ω_H (\log n/{\log(1/γ)})$. This is the first non-trivial instance where the optimal dependence in Nikiforov's theorem is known. As a consequence, we also prove an upper bound on multicolor Ramsey numbers of blowups of triangle-free graphs, proving that the dependence on the number of colors is polynomial once the blowup is sufficiently large. This shows that, from the perspective of multicolor Ramsey numbers, blowups of fixed triangle-free graphs behave like bipartite graphs.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_12913
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Blowups of triangle-free graphs
Girão, António
Hunter, Zach
Wigderson, Yuval
Combinatorics
A highly influential result of Nikiforov states that if an $n$-vertex graph $G$ contains at least $γn^h$ copies of a fixed $h$-vertex graph $H$, then $G$ contains a blowup of $H$ of order $Ω_{γ,H}(\log n)$. While the dependence on $n$ is optimal, the correct dependence on $γ$ is unknown; all known proofs yield bounds that are polynomial in $γ$, but the best known upper bound, coming from random graphs, is only logarithmic in $γ$. It is a major open problem to narrow this gap. We prove that if $H$ is triangle-free, then the logarithmic behavior of the upper bound is the truth. That is, under the assumptions above, $G$ contains a blowup of $H$ of order $Ω_H (\log n/{\log(1/γ)})$. This is the first non-trivial instance where the optimal dependence in Nikiforov's theorem is known. As a consequence, we also prove an upper bound on multicolor Ramsey numbers of blowups of triangle-free graphs, proving that the dependence on the number of colors is polynomial once the blowup is sufficiently large. This shows that, from the perspective of multicolor Ramsey numbers, blowups of fixed triangle-free graphs behave like bipartite graphs.
title Blowups of triangle-free graphs
topic Combinatorics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.12913