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Main Authors: Kim, Seokbeom, LaGrange, Taite, Rundström, Mathieu, Sadhukhan, Arpan, Spirkl, Sophie
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.03234
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author Kim, Seokbeom
LaGrange, Taite
Rundström, Mathieu
Sadhukhan, Arpan
Spirkl, Sophie
author_facet Kim, Seokbeom
LaGrange, Taite
Rundström, Mathieu
Sadhukhan, Arpan
Spirkl, Sophie
contents We extend the list of tournaments $S$ for which the complete structural description for tournaments excluding $S$ as a subtournament is known. Specifically, let $Δ(1, 2, 2)$ be a tournament on five vertices obtained from a cyclic triangle by substituting a two-vertex tournament for two of its vertices. In this paper, we show that tournaments excluding $Δ(1, 2, 2)$ as a subtournament are either isomorphic to one of three small tournaments, obtained from a transitive tournament by reversing edges in vertex-disjoint directed paths, or obtained from a smaller tournament with the same property by applying one of two operations. In particular, one of these operations creates a homogeneous set that induces a subtournament isomorphic to one of three fixed tournaments, and the other creates a homogeneous pair such that their union induces a subtournament isomorphic to a fixed tournament. As an application of this result, we present an upper bound for the chromatic number, a lower bound for the size of a largest transitive subtournament, and a lower bound for the number of vertex-disjoint cyclic triangles for such tournaments. The bounds that we present are all best possible.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_03234
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The structure of $Δ(1, 2, 2)$-free tournaments
Kim, Seokbeom
LaGrange, Taite
Rundström, Mathieu
Sadhukhan, Arpan
Spirkl, Sophie
Combinatorics
We extend the list of tournaments $S$ for which the complete structural description for tournaments excluding $S$ as a subtournament is known. Specifically, let $Δ(1, 2, 2)$ be a tournament on five vertices obtained from a cyclic triangle by substituting a two-vertex tournament for two of its vertices. In this paper, we show that tournaments excluding $Δ(1, 2, 2)$ as a subtournament are either isomorphic to one of three small tournaments, obtained from a transitive tournament by reversing edges in vertex-disjoint directed paths, or obtained from a smaller tournament with the same property by applying one of two operations. In particular, one of these operations creates a homogeneous set that induces a subtournament isomorphic to one of three fixed tournaments, and the other creates a homogeneous pair such that their union induces a subtournament isomorphic to a fixed tournament. As an application of this result, we present an upper bound for the chromatic number, a lower bound for the size of a largest transitive subtournament, and a lower bound for the number of vertex-disjoint cyclic triangles for such tournaments. The bounds that we present are all best possible.
title The structure of $Δ(1, 2, 2)$-free tournaments
topic Combinatorics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.03234