On an Erdős--Lov'asz problem: 3-critical 3-graphs of minimum degree 7

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Autore principale: Li, Ruiliang
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Li, Ruiliang
author_facet Li, Ruiliang
contents Erdős and Lov'asz asked whether there exists a "3-critical" 3-uniform hypergraph in which every vertex has degree at least 7. The original formulation does not specify what 3-critical means, and two non-equivalent notions have appeared in the literature and in later discussions of the problem. In this paper we resolve the question under both interpretations. For the transversal interpretation (criticality with respect to the transversal number), we prove that a 3-uniform hypergraph $H$ with $τ(H)=3$ and $τ(H-e)=2$ for every edge $e$ has at most 10 edges; in particular, $δ(H)\le 6$, and this bound is sharp, witnessed by the complete 3-graph $K^{(3)}_5$. For the chromatic interpretation (criticality with respect to weak vertex-colourings), we give an explicit 3-uniform hypergraph on 9 vertices with $χ(H)=3$ and minimum degree $δ(H)=7$ such that deleting any single edge or any single vertex makes it 2-colourable. The criticality of the example is certified by explicit witness 2-colourings listed in the appendices, together with a short verification script.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_24850
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle On an Erdős--Lov'asz problem: 3-critical 3-graphs of minimum degree 7
Li, Ruiliang
Discrete Mathematics
Combinatorics
05C65, 05C15, 05C35
Erdős and Lov'asz asked whether there exists a "3-critical" 3-uniform hypergraph in which every vertex has degree at least 7. The original formulation does not specify what 3-critical means, and two non-equivalent notions have appeared in the literature and in later discussions of the problem. In this paper we resolve the question under both interpretations. For the transversal interpretation (criticality with respect to the transversal number), we prove that a 3-uniform hypergraph $H$ with $τ(H)=3$ and $τ(H-e)=2$ for every edge $e$ has at most 10 edges; in particular, $δ(H)\le 6$, and this bound is sharp, witnessed by the complete 3-graph $K^{(3)}_5$. For the chromatic interpretation (criticality with respect to weak vertex-colourings), we give an explicit 3-uniform hypergraph on 9 vertices with $χ(H)=3$ and minimum degree $δ(H)=7$ such that deleting any single edge or any single vertex makes it 2-colourable. The criticality of the example is certified by explicit witness 2-colourings listed in the appendices, together with a short verification script.
title On an Erdős--Lov'asz problem: 3-critical 3-graphs of minimum degree 7
topic Discrete Mathematics
Combinatorics
05C65, 05C15, 05C35
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.24850