Edge-spectral Turán theorems for color-critical graphs with applications

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Li, Yongtao, Liu, Hong, Zhang, Shengtong
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Li, Yongtao
Liu, Hong
Zhang, Shengtong
author_facet Li, Yongtao
Liu, Hong
Zhang, Shengtong
contents A classical result of Nosal asserts that every $m$-edge graph with spectral radius $λ(G)> \sqrt{m}$ contains a triangle. A celebrated extension of Nikiforov [35] states that if $G$ is an $m$-edge graph with $λ(G)> \sqrt{(1- {1}/{r})2m}$, then $G$ contains a clique $K_{r+1}$. This result implies the Turán theorem and Wilf theorem, and offers a new perspective on the existence of substructures. The edge-spectral conditions are versatile for enforcing substructures, as they can be applied to any sparse graph regardless of its edge density. In this paper, we prove that for any color-critical graph $F$ with chromatic number $χ(F)=r+1\ge 4$, if $m$ is sufficiently large and $G$ is an $F$-free graph with $m$ edges, then $λ(G)\le \sqrt{(1- {1}/{r})2m}$, with equality if and only if $G$ is a regular complete $r$-partite graph. This settles an open problem proposed by Yu and Li [52] and also gives spectral bounds for graphs forbidding books and wheels. Secondly, we establish an asymptotic formula and structural characterization when we forbid an almost-bipartite graph $F$, where $F$ is called almost-bipartite if it can be made bipartite by removing at most one edge. As applications, we determine the unique $m$-edge spectral extremal graph for every integer $m$ when avoiding certain substructures, including complete bipartite graphs plus an edge, cycles plus an edge, and theta graphs, etc. Our results resolve an open problem proposed by Li, Zhao and Zou [24], as well as two conjectures posed by Liu and Li [31]. The arguments in our proofs are based on the edge-spectral stability method recently established by the authors. In addition, we develop some new spectral techniques, including the stability result for the Perron--Frobenius eigenvector.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_15431
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Edge-spectral Turán theorems for color-critical graphs with applications
Li, Yongtao
Liu, Hong
Zhang, Shengtong
Combinatorics
A classical result of Nosal asserts that every $m$-edge graph with spectral radius $λ(G)> \sqrt{m}$ contains a triangle. A celebrated extension of Nikiforov [35] states that if $G$ is an $m$-edge graph with $λ(G)> \sqrt{(1- {1}/{r})2m}$, then $G$ contains a clique $K_{r+1}$. This result implies the Turán theorem and Wilf theorem, and offers a new perspective on the existence of substructures. The edge-spectral conditions are versatile for enforcing substructures, as they can be applied to any sparse graph regardless of its edge density. In this paper, we prove that for any color-critical graph $F$ with chromatic number $χ(F)=r+1\ge 4$, if $m$ is sufficiently large and $G$ is an $F$-free graph with $m$ edges, then $λ(G)\le \sqrt{(1- {1}/{r})2m}$, with equality if and only if $G$ is a regular complete $r$-partite graph. This settles an open problem proposed by Yu and Li [52] and also gives spectral bounds for graphs forbidding books and wheels. Secondly, we establish an asymptotic formula and structural characterization when we forbid an almost-bipartite graph $F$, where $F$ is called almost-bipartite if it can be made bipartite by removing at most one edge. As applications, we determine the unique $m$-edge spectral extremal graph for every integer $m$ when avoiding certain substructures, including complete bipartite graphs plus an edge, cycles plus an edge, and theta graphs, etc. Our results resolve an open problem proposed by Li, Zhao and Zou [24], as well as two conjectures posed by Liu and Li [31]. The arguments in our proofs are based on the edge-spectral stability method recently established by the authors. In addition, we develop some new spectral techniques, including the stability result for the Perron--Frobenius eigenvector.
title Edge-spectral Turán theorems for color-critical graphs with applications
topic Combinatorics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.15431