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We prove that every $n$-vertex directed graph $G$ with the minimum outdegree $\delta^+(G) = d$ contains a subgraph $H$ satisfying \[ \min\left\{\delta^+(H), \delta^-(H) \right\} \ge \frac{d(d+1)}{2n} \,.\] We also show that if $d = o(n)$ then this bound is asymptotically best possible.

We show that for all $k\geq 4$, $\varepsilon >0$, and $n$ sufficiently large, every $k$-uniform hypergraph on $n$ vertices in which each set of $k-3$ vertices is contained in at least $(5/8 + \varepsilon) \binom{n}{3}$ edges contains a tight Hamilton cycle. This is asymptotically best possible., Comment: 17 pages

We give a new lower bound for the minimal dispersion of a point set in the unit cube and its inverse function in the high dimension regime. This is done by considering only a very small class of test boxes, which allows us to reduce bounding the dispersion to a problem in extremal set theory. Specifically, we translate a lower bound on the size of $r$-cover-free families to a lower bound on the inverse of the minimal dispersion of a point set. The lower bound we obtain matches the recently obtained upper bound on the minimal dispersion up to logarithmic terms.

Ramsey's Theorem guarantees for every graph H that any 2-edge-coloring of a sufficiently large complete graph contains a monochromatic copy of H. In 1962, Erdos conjectured that the random 2-edge-coloring minimizes the number of monochromatic copies of K_k, and the conjecture was extended by Burr and Rosta to all graphs. In the late 1980s, the conjectures were disproved by Thomason and Sidorenko, respectively. A classification of graphs whose number of monochromatic copies is minimized by the random 2-edge-coloring, which are referred to as common graphs, remains a challenging open problem. If Sidorenko's Conjecture, one of the most significant open problems in extremal graph theory, is true, then every 2-chromatic graph is common, and in fact, no 2-chromatic common graph unsettled for Sidorenko's Conjecture is known. While examples of 3-chromatic common graphs were known for a long time, the existence of a 4-chromatic common graph was open until 2012, and no common graph with a larger chromatic number is known. We construct connected k-chromatic common graphs for every k. This answers a question posed by Hatami, Hladky, Kral, Norine and Razborov [Combin. Probab. Comput. 21 (2012), 734-742], and a problem listed by Conlon, Fox and Sudakov [London Math. Soc. Lecture Note Ser. 424 (2015), 49-118, Problem 2.28]. This also answers in a stronger form the question raised by Jagger, Stovicek and Thomason [Combinatorica 16, (1996), 123-131] whether there exists a common graph with chromatic number at least four.

Denote by $q_n(G)$ the smallest eigenvalue of the signless Laplacian matrix of an $n$-vertex graph $G$. Brandt conjectured in 1997 that for regular triangle-free graphs $q_n(G) \leq \frac{4n}{25}$. We prove a stronger result: If $G$ is a triangle-free graph then $q_n(G) \leq \frac{15n}{94}< \frac{4n}{25}$. Brandt's conjecture is a subproblem of two famous conjectures of Erd\H{o}s: (1) Sparse-Half-Conjecture: Every $n$-vertex triangle-free graph has a subset of vertices of size $\lceil\frac{n}{2}\rceil$ spanning at most $n^2/50$ edges. (2) Every $n$-vertex triangle-free graph can be made bipartite by removing at most $n^2/25$ edges. In our proof we use linear algebraic methods to upper bound $q_n(G)$ by the ratio between the number of induced paths with 3 and 4 vertices. We give an upper bound on this ratio via the method of flag algebras.

The codegree threshold $\mathrm{ex}_2(n, F)$ of a $3$-graph $F$ is the minimum $d=d(n)$ such that every $3$-graph on $n$ vertices in which every pair of vertices is contained in at least $d+1$ edges contains a copy of $F$ as a subgraph. We study $\mathrm{ex}_2(n, F)$ when $F=K_4^-$, the $3$-graph on $4$ vertices with $3$ edges. Using flag algebra techniques, we prove that if $n$ is sufficiently large then $\mathrm{ex}_2(n, K_4^-)\leq (n+1)/4$. This settles in the affirmative a conjecture of Nagle from 1999. In addition, we obtain a stability result: for every near-extremal configuration $G$, there is a quasirandom tournament $T$ on the same vertex set such that $G$ is close in the edit distance to the $3$-graph $C(T)$ whose edges are the cyclically oriented triangles from $T$. For infinitely many values of $n$, we are further able to determine $\mathrm{ex}_2(n, K_4^-)$ exactly and to show that tournament-based constructions $C(T)$ are extremal for those values of $n$., Comment: 31 pages, 7 figures. Ancillary files to the submission contain the information needed to verify the flag algebra computation in Lemma 2.8. Expands on the 2017 conference paper of the same name by the same authors (Electronic Notes in Discrete Mathematics, Volume 61, pages 407-413)

Caccetta-H\"{a}ggkvist conjecture is a longstanding open problem on degree conditions that force an oriented graph to contain a directed cycle of a bounded length. Motivated by this conjecture, Kelly, K\"uhn, and Osthus initiated a study of degree conditions forcing the containment of a directed cycle of a given length. In particular, they found the optimal minimum semidegree, that is, the smaller of the minimum indegree and the minimum outdegree, which forces a large oriented graph to contain a directed cycle of a given length not divisible by 3, and conjectured the optimal minimum semidegree for all the other cycles except the directed triangle. In this paper, we establish the best possible minimum semidegree that forces a large oriented graph to contain a directed cycle of a given length divisible by 3 yet not equal to 3, hence fully resolve the conjecture by Kelly, K\"{u}hn, and Osthus. We also find an asymptotically optimal semidegree threshold of any cycle with a given orientation of its edges with the sole exception of a directed triangle.

A graph H is common if the number of monochromatic copies of H in a 2-edge-colouring of the complete graph is minimised by the random colouring. Burr and Rosta, extending a famous conjecture by Erdos, conjectured that every graph is common. The conjectures by Erdos and by Burr and Rosta were disproved by Thomason and by Sidorenko, respectively, in the late 1980s. Collecting new examples for common graphs had not seen much progress since then, although very recently, a few more graphs are verified to be common by the flag algebra method or the recent progress on Sidorenko's conjecture. Our contribution here is to give a new class of tripartite common graphs. The first example class is so-called triangle-trees, which generalises two theorems by Sidorenko and answers a question by Jagger, \v{S}\v{t}ov\'i\v{c}ek, and Thomason from 1996. We also prove that, somewhat surprisingly, given any tree T, there exists a triangle-tree such that the graph obtained by adding T as a pendant tree is still common. Furthermore, we show that adding arbitrarily many apex vertices to any connected bipartite graph on at most five vertices give a common graph.

A graph H is common if the number of monochromatic copies of H in a 2-edge-coloring of the complete graph is asymptotically minimized by the random coloring. The classification of common graphs is one of the most intriguing problems in extremal graph theory. We study the notion of weakly locally common graphs considered by Cs\'oka, Hubai and Lov\'asz [arXiv:1912.02926], where the graph is required to be the minimizer with respect to perturbations of the random 2-edge-coloring. We give a complete analysis of the 12 initial terms in the Taylor series determining the number of monochromatic copies of H in such perturbations and classify graphs H based on this analysis into three categories: graphs of Class I are weakly locally common, graphs of Class II are not weakly locally common, and graphs of Class III cannot be determined to be weakly locally common or not based on the initial 12 terms. As a corollary, we obtain new necessary conditions on a graph to be common and new sufficient conditions on a graph to be not common.

We study the asymptotic behavior of the maximum number of directed cycles of a given length in a tournament: let $c(\ell)$ be the limit of the ratio of the maximum number of cycles of length $\ell$ in an $n$-vertex tournament and the expected number of cycles of length $\ell$ in the random $n$-vertex tournament, when $n$ tends to infinity. It is well-known that $c(3)=1$ and $c(4)=4/3$. We show that $c(\ell)=1$ if and only if $\ell$ is not divisible by four, which settles a conjecture of Bartley and Day. If $\ell$ is divisible by four, we show that $1+2\cdot\left(2/\pi\right)^{\ell}\le c(\ell)\le 1+\left(2/\pi+o(1)\right)^{\ell}$ and determine the value $c(\ell)$ exactly for $\ell = 8$. We also give a full description of the asymptotic structure of tournaments with the maximum number of cycles of length $\ell$ when $\ell$ is not divisible by four or $\ell\in\{4,8\}$., Comment: One of the programs used to verify the validity of Lemma 17 is available as an ancillary file; its output has also been made available as an ancillary file

A graph H is k-common if the number of monochromatic copies of H in a k-edge-coloring of K_n is asymptotically minimized by a random coloring. For every k, we construct a connected non-bipartite k-common graph. This resolves a problem raised by Jagger, Stovicek and Thomason [Combinatorica 16 (1996), 123-141]. We also show that a graph H is k-common for every k if and only if H is Sidorenko and that H is locally k-common for every k if and only if H is locally Sidorenko., Comment: Fix of an incorrectly argued step in the proof of Lemma 12

A tournament H is quasirandom-forcing if the following holds for every sequence (G_n) of tournaments of growing orders: if the density of H in G_n converges to the expected density of H in a random tournament, then (G_n) is quasirandom. Every transitive tournament with at least 4 vertices is quasirandom-forcing, and Coregliano et al. [Electron. J. Combin. 26 (2019), P1.44] showed that there is also a non-transitive 5-vertex tournament with the property. We show that no additional tournament has this property. This extends the result of Bucic et al. [Combinatorica 41 (2021), 175-208] that the non-transitive tournaments with seven or more vertices do not have this property.

For a real constant $\alpha$, let $\pi_3^\alpha(G)$ be the minimum of twice the number of $K_2$'s plus $\alpha$ times the number of $K_3$'s over all edge decompositions of $G$ into copies of $K_2$ and $K_3$, where $K_r$ denotes the complete graph on $r$ vertices. Let $\pi_3^\alpha(n)$ be the maximum of $\pi_3^\alpha(G)$ over all graphs $G$ with $n$ vertices. The extremal function $\pi_3^3(n)$ was first studied by Gy\H{o}ri and Tuza [Decompositions of graphs into complete subgraphs of given order, Studia Sci. Math. Hungar. 22 (1987), 315--320]. In a recent progress on this problem, Kr\'al', Lidick\'y, Martins and Pehova [Decomposing graphs into edges and triangles, Combin. Prob. Comput. 28 (2019) 465--472] proved via flag algebras that $\pi_3^3(n)\le (1/2+o(1))n^2$. We extend their result by determining the exact value of $\pi_3^\alpha(n)$ and the set of extremal graphs for all $\alpha$ and sufficiently large $n$. In particular, we show for $\alpha=3$ that $K_n$ and the complete bipartite graph $K_{\lfloor n/2\rfloor,\lceil n/2\rceil}$ are the only possible extremal examples for large $n$., Comment: 20 pages, 3 figures

It is known that a sequence Pi_i of permutations is quasirandom if and only if the pattern density of every 4-point permutation in Pi_i converges to 1/24. We show that there is a set S of 4-point permutations such that the sum of the pattern densities of the permutations from S in the permutations Pi_i converges to |S|/24 if and only if the sequence is quasirandom. Moreover, we are able to completely characterize the sets S with this property. In particular, there are exactly ten such sets, the smallest of which has cardinality eight., Comment: Appendices 1-5 are contained in the ancillary pdf file available on arXiv for download

The Hall ratio of a graph $G$ is the maximum value of $v(H) / \alpha(H)$ taken over all non-null subgraphs $H$ of $G$. For any graph, the Hall ratio is a lower-bound on its fractional chromatic number. In this note, we present various constructions of graphs whose fractional chromatic number grows much faster than their Hall ratio. This refutes a conjecture of Harris.

We apply ideas from the theory of limits of dense combinatorial structures to study order types, which are combinatorial encodings of finite point sets. Using flag algebras we obtain new numerical results on the Erd\H{o}s problem of finding the minimal density of 5-or 6-tuples in convex position in an arbitrary point set, and also an inequality expressing the difficulty of sampling order types uniformly. Next we establish results on the analytic representation of limits of order types by planar measures. Our main result is a rigidity theorem: we show that if sampling two measures induce the same probability distribution on order types, then these measures are projectively equivalent provided the support of at least one of them has non-empty interior. We also show that some condition on the Hausdorff dimension of the support is necessary to obtain projective rigidity and we construct limits of order types that cannot be represented by a planar measure. Returning to combinatorial geometry we relate the regularity of this analytic representation to the aforementioned problem of Erd\H{o}s on the density of k-tuples in convex position, for large k.

In 1975, Pippenger and Golumbic conjectured that every n-vertex graph has at most $n^k/(k^k - k)$ induced cycles of length k for k at least 5. We prove that every n-vertex graph has at most $2 n^k/k^k$ induced cycles of length k.

Let d_i(G) be the density of the 3-vertex i-edge graph in a graph G, i.e., the probability that three random vertices induce a subgraph with i edges. Let S be the set of all quadruples (d_0,d_1,d_2,d_3) that are arbitrary close to 3-vertex graph densities in arbitrary large graphs. Huang, Linial, Naves, Peled and Sudakov have recently determined the projection of the set S to the (d_0,d_3) plane. We determine the projection of the set S to all the remaining planes., Comment: We have recently noticed a miscalculation in the proof of Lemma 7 and are preparing a revision of the manuscript

If a graph has $n\ge4k$ vertices and more than $n^2/4$ edges, then it contains a copy of $C_{2k+1}$. In 1992, Erd\H{o}s, Faudree and Rousseau showed even more, that the number of edges that occur in a triangle is at least $2\lfloor n/2\rfloor+1$, and this bound is tight. They also showed that the minimum number of edges that occur in a $C_{2k+1}$ for $k\ge2$ is at least $11n^2/144-O(n)$, and conjectured that for any $k\ge2$, the correct lower bound should be $2n^2/9-O(n)$. Very recently, F\"uredi and Maleki constructed a counterexample for $k=2$ and proved asymptotically matching lower bound, namely that for any $\varepsilon>0$ graphs with $(1+\varepsilon)n^2/4$ edges contain at least $(2+\sqrt{2})n^2/16 \approx 0.2134n^2$ edges that occur in $C_5$. In this paper, we use a different approach to tackle this problem and obtain the following stronger result: Any $n$-vertex graph with at least $\lfloor n^2/4\rfloor+1$ edges has at least $(2+\sqrt{2})n^2/16-O(n^{15/8})$ edges that occur in $C_5$. Next, for all $k\ge 3$ and $n$ sufficiently large, we determine the exact minimum number of edges that occur in $C_{2k+1}$ for $n$-vertex graphs with more than $n^2/4$ edges, and show it is indeed equal to $\lfloor\frac{n^2}4\rfloor+1-\lfloor\frac{n+4}6\rfloor\lfloor\frac{n+1}6\rfloor=2n^2/9-O(n)$. For both results, we give a structural description of the extremal configurations as well as obtain the corresponding stability results, which answer a conjecture of F\"uredi and Maleki. The main ingredient is a novel approach that combines the flag algebras together with ideas from finite forcibility of graph limits. This approach allowed us to keep track of the extra edge needed to guarantee an existence of a $C_{2k+1}$. Also, we establish the first application of semidefinite method in a setting, where the set of tight examples has exponential size, and arises from different constructions.

Let $c$ be an edge-coloring of the complete $n$-vertex graph $K_n$. The problem of finding properly colored and rainbow Hamilton cycles in $c$ was initiated in 1976 by Bollob\'as and Erd\H os and has been extensively studied since then. Recently it was extended to the hypergraph setting by Dudek, Frieze and Ruci\'nski. We generalize these results, giving sufficient local (resp. global) restrictions on the colorings which guarantee a properly colored (resp. rainbow) copy of a given hypergraph $G$. We also study multipartite analogues of these questions. We give (up to a constant factor) optimal sufficient conditions for a coloring $c$ of the complete balanced $m$-partite graph to contain a properly colored or rainbow copy of a given graph $G$ with maximum degree $\Delta$. Our bounds exhibit a surprising transition in the rate of growth, showing that the problem is fundamentally different in the regimes $\Delta \gg m$ and $\Delta \ll m$ Our main tool is the framework of Lu and Sz\'ekely for the space of random bijections, which we extend to product spaces.

Let G be an n-vertex graph that contains linearly many cherries (i.e., paths on 3 vertices), and let c be a coloring of the edges of the complete graph K_n such that at each vertex every color appears only constantly many times. In 1979, Shearer conjectured that such a coloring c must contain a properly colored copy of G. We establish this conjecture in a strong form, showing that it holds even for graphs G with O(n^(4/3)) cherries and moreover this bound on the number of cherries is best possible up to a constant factor. We also prove that one can find a rainbow copy of such G in every edge-coloring of K_n in which all colors appear bounded number of times. Our proofs combine a framework of Lu and Szekely for using the lopsided Lovasz local lemma in the space of random bijections together with some additional ideas.

We show that for every sufficiently large $n$, the number of monotone subsequences of length four in a permutation on $n$ points is at least $\binom{\lfloor n/3 \rfloor}{4} + \binom{\lfloor(n+1)/3\rfloor}{4} + \binom{\lfloor (n+2)/3\rfloor}{4}$. Furthermore, we characterize all permutations on $[n]$ that attain this lower bound. The proof uses the flag algebra framework together with some additional stability arguments. This problem is equivalent to some specific type of edge colorings of complete graphs with two colors, where the number of monochromatic $K_4$'s is minimized. We show that all the extremal colorings must contain monochromatic $K_4$'s only in one of the two colors. This translates back to permutations, where all the monotone subsequences of length four are all either increasing, or decreasing only., Comment: 24 pages, 7 figures, accepted to Combinatorics, Probability and Computing

Erdos and Sos proposed a problem of determining the maximum number F(n) of rainbow triangles in 3-edge-colored complete graphs on n vertices. They conjectured that F(n) = F(a)+ F(b)+F(c)+F(d)+abc+abd+acd+bcd, where a+b+c+d = n and a, b, c, d are as equal as possible. We prove that the conjectured recurrence holds for sufficiently large n. We also prove the conjecture for n = 4k for all k. These results imply that lim F(n) n^3/6 = 0.4, and determine the unique limit object. In the proof we use flag algebras combined with stability arguments., Comment: 27 pages

We prove that every planar triangle-free graph on $n$ vertices has fractional chromatic number at most $3-\frac{1}{n+1/3}$.

We prove that the acyclic chromatic number of a graph with maximum degree $\Delta$ is less than $2.835\Delta^{4/3}+\Delta$. This improves the previous upper bound, which was $50\Delta^{4/3}$. To do so, we draw inspiration from works by Alon, McDiarmid and Reed and by Esperet and Parreau.

Graphons are analytic objects associated with convergent sequences of graphs. Problems from extremal combinatorics and theoretical computer science led to a study of graphons determined by finitely many subgraph densities, which are referred to as finitely forcible. Following the intuition that such graphons should have finitary structure, Lovasz and Szegedy conjectured that the topological space of typical vertices of a finitely forcible graphon is always compact. We disprove the conjecture by constructing a finitely forcible graphon such that the associated space is not compact. The construction method gives a general framework for constructing finitely forcible graphons with non-trivial properties.

We show that for every positive epsilon there exist positive delta and n_0 such that every 3-uniform hypergraph on n>=n_0 vertices with the property that every k-vertex subset, where k>=delta*n, induces at least (1/4 + epsilon)*{k \choose 3} edges, contains K4- as a subgraph, where K4- is the 3-uniform hypergraph on 4 vertices with 3 edges. This question was originally raised by Erdos and Sos. The constant 1/4 is the best possible.

We prove that every subcubic triangle-free graph has fractional chromatic number at most 14/5, thus confirming a conjecture of Heckman and Thomas [A new proof of the independence ratio of triangle-free cubic graphs. Discrete Math. 233 (2001), 233--237].

We study the following problem: given a real number k and integer d, what is the smallest epsilon such that any fractional (k+epsilon)-precoloring of vertices at pairwise distances at least d of a fractionally k-colorable graph can be extended to a fractional (k+epsilon)-coloring of the whole graph? The exact values of epsilon were known for k=2 and k\ge3 and any d. We determine the exact values of epsilon for k \in (2,3) if d=4, and k \in [2.5,3) if d=6, and give upper bounds for k \in (2,3) if d=5,7, and k \in (2,2.5) if d=6. Surprisingly, epsilon viewed as a function of k is discontinuous for all those values of d.

We show that for every cubic graph G with sufficiently large girth there exists a probability distribution on edge-cuts of G such that each edge is in a randomly chosen cut with probability at least 0.88672. This implies that G contains an edge-cut of size at least 1.33008n, where n is the number of vertices of G, and has fractional cut covering number at most 1.127752. The lower bound on the size of maximum edge-cut also applies to random cubic graphs. Specifically, a random n-vertex cubic graph a.a.s. contains an edge cut of size 1.33008n.

The problem Cover(H) asks whether an input graph G covers a fixed graph H (i.e., whether there exists a homomorphism G to H which locally preserves the structure of the graphs). Complexity of this problem has been intensively studied. In this paper, we consider the problem PlanarCover(H) which restricts the input graph G to be planar. PlanarCover(H) is polynomially solvable if Cover(H) belongs to P, and it is even trivially solvable if H has no planar cover. Thus the interesting cases are when H admits a planar cover, but Cover(H) is NP-complete. This also relates the problem to the long-standing Negami Conjecture which aims to describe all graphs having a planar cover. Kratochvil asked whether there are non-trivial graphs for which Cover(H) is NP-complete but PlanarCover(H) belongs to P. We examine the first nontrivial cases of graphs H for which Cover(H) is NP-complete and which admit a planar cover. We prove NP-completeness of PlanarCover(H) in these cases., Comment: Full version (including Appendix) of a paper from the conference WG 2011

We show that every (sub)cubic n-vertex graph with sufficiently large girth has fractional chromatic number at most 2.2978 which implies that it contains an independent set of size at least 0.4352n. Our bound on the independence number is valid to random cubic graphs as well as it improves existing lower bounds on the maximum cut in cubic graphs with large girth.

We show that every n-vertex cubic graph with girth at least g have domination number at most 0.299871n+O(n/g)<3n/10+O(n/g).