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For any fixed $d\geq1$ and subset $X$ of $\mathbb{N}^d$, let $r_X(n)$ be the maximum cardinality of a subset $A$ of $\{1,\dots,n\}^d$ which does not contain a subset of the form $\vec{b} + rX$ for $r>0$ and $\vec{b} \in \mathbb{R}^d$. Such a set $A$ is said to be \emph{$X$-free}. The Multidimensional Szemer\'edi Theorem of Furstenberg and Katznelson states that $r_X(n)=o(n^d)$. We show that, for $|X|\geq 3$ and infinitely many $n\in\mathbb{N}$, the number of $X$-free subsets of $\{1,\dots,n\}^d$ is at most $2^{O(r_X(n))}$. The proof involves using a known multidimensional extension of Behrend's construction to obtain a supersaturation theorem for copies of $X$ in dense subsets of $[n]^d$ for infinitely many values of $n$ and then applying the powerful hypergraph container lemma. Our result generalizes work of Balogh, Liu, and Sharifzadeh on $k$-AP-free sets and Kim on corner-free sets., Comment: 19 pages

We show that $(n,d,\lambda)$-graphs with $\lambda=O(d/\log^3 n)$ are universal with respect to all bounded degree spanning trees. This significantly improves upon the previous best bound due to Han and Yang of the form $\lambda=d/\exp{(O(\sqrt{\log n}))}$, and makes progress towards a problem of Alon, Krivelevich, and Sudakov from 2007. Our proof relies on the existence of sorting networks of logarithmic depth, as given by a celebrated construction of Ajtai, Koml\'os and Szemer\'edi. Using this construction, we show that the classical vertex-disjoint paths problem can be solved for a set of vertices fixed in advance., Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures

The \emph{Ramsey multiplicity constant} of a graph $H$ is the limit as $n$ tends to infinity of the minimum density of monochromatic labeled copies of $H$ in a $2$-edge colouring of $K_n$. Fox and Wigderson recently identified a large family of graphs whose Ramsey multiplicity constants are attained by sequences of ``Tur\'an colourings''; i.e. colourings in which one of the colour classes forms the edge set of a balanced complete multipartite graph. Each graph in their family comes from taking a connected non-3-colourable graph with a critical edge and adding many pendant edges. We extend their result to an off-diagonal variant of the Ramsey multiplicity constant which involves minimizing a weighted sum of red copies of one graph and blue copies of another., Comment: 33 pages. Note that the first arXiv version of this paper contained several Ramsey multiplicity results for pairs of small graphs proved via the flag algebra method. We have decided to remove those results to make the paper shorter and more focused. We are currently preparing a second manuscript in which we plan to include generalizations of some of the statements that we removed

For graphs $G, H_1,\dots,H_r$, write $G \to (H_1, \ldots, H_r)$ to denote the property that whenever we $r$-colour the edges of $G$, there is a monochromatic copy of $H_i$ in colour $i$ for some $i \in \{1,\dots,r\}$. Mousset, Nenadov and Samotij proved an upper bound on the threshold function for the property that $G_{n,p} \to (H_1,\dots,H_r)$, thereby resolving the $1$-statement of the Kohayakawa--Kreuter conjecture. We reduce the $0$-statement of the Kohayakawa--Kreuter conjecture to a natural deterministic colouring problem and resolve this problem for almost all cases, which in particular includes (but is not limited to) when $H_2$ is strictly $2$-balanced and either has density greater than $2$ or is not bipartite. In addition, we extend our reduction to hypergraphs, proving the colouring problem in almost all cases there as well., Comment: 38 pages, 5 figures, plus an appendix with 24 pages, 7 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2105.15151

Let $G$ be a graph obtained as the union of some $n$-vertex graph $H_n$ with minimum degree $\delta(H_n)\geq\alpha n$ and a $d$-dimensional random geometric graph $G^d(n,r)$. We investigate under which conditions for $r$ the graph $G$ will a.a.s. contain the $k$-th power of a Hamilton cycle, for any choice of $H_n$. We provide asymptotically optimal conditions for $r$ for all values of $\alpha$, $d$ and $k$. This has applications in the containment of other spanning structures, such as $F$-factors., Comment: To appear in European Journal of Combinatorics. This version addresses referee reports

A thoroughly studied problem in Extremal Graph Theory is to find the best possible density condition in a host graph $G$ for guaranteeing the presence of a particular subgraph $H$ in $G$. One such classical result, due to Bollob\'{a}s and Thomason, and independently Koml\'{o}s and Szemer\'{e}di, states that average degree $O(k^2)$ guarantees the existence of a $K_k$-subdivision. We study two directions extending this result. On the one hand, Verstra\"ete conjectured that the quadratic bound $O(k^2)$ would guarantee already two vertex-disjoint isomorphic copies of a $K_k$-subdivision. On the other hand, Thomassen conjectured that for each $k \in \mathbb{N}$ there is some $d = d(k)$ such that every graph with average degree at least $d$ contains a balanced subdivision of $K_k$, that is, a copy of $K_k$ where the edges are replaced by paths of equal length. Recently, Liu and Montgomery confirmed Thomassen's conjecture, but the optimal bound on $d(k)$ remains open. In this paper, we show that the quadratic bound $O(k^2)$ suffices to force a balanced $K_k$-subdivision. This gives the optimal bound on $d(k)$ needed in Thomassen's conjecture and implies the existence of $O(1)$ many vertex-disjoint isomorphic $K_k$-subdivisions, confirming Verstra\"ete's conjecture in a strong sense., Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures

The Ramsey number $R(F,H)$ is the minimum number $N$ such that any $N$-vertex graph either contains a copy of $F$ or its complement contains $H$. Burr in 1981 proved a pleasingly general result that for any graph $H$, provided $n$ is sufficiently large, a natural lower bound construction gives the correct Ramsey number involving cycles: $R(C_n,H)=(n-1)(\chi(H)-1)+\sigma(H)$, where $\sigma(H)$ is the minimum possible size of a colour class in a $\chi(H)$-colouring of $H$. Allen, Brightwell and Skokan conjectured that the same should be true already when $n\geq |H|\chi(H)$. We improve this 40-year-old result of Burr by giving quantitative bounds of the form $n\geq C|H|\log^4\chi(H)$, which is optimal up to the logarithmic factor. In particular, this proves a strengthening of the Allen-Brightwell-Skokan conjecture for all graphs $H$ with large chromatic number., Comment: 20 pages, 3 figures. Final version to appear in Forum of Mathematics, Sigma

In this paper, we study asymmetric Ramsey properties of the random graph $G_{n,p}$. Let $r \in \mathbb{N}$ and $H_1, \ldots, H_r$ be graphs. We write $G_{n,p} \to (H_1, \ldots, H_r)$ to denote the property that whenever we colour the edges of $G_{n,p}$ with colours from the set $[r] := \{1, \ldots, r\}$ there exists $i \in [r]$ and a copy of $H_i$ in $G_{n,p}$ monochromatic in colour $i$. There has been much interest in determining the asymptotic threshold function for this property. R\"{o}dl and Ruci\'{n}ski determined the threshold function for the general symmetric case; that is, when $H_1 = \cdots = H_r$. A conjecture of Kohayakawa and Kreuter, if true, would fully resolve the asymmetric problem. Recently, the 1-statement of this conjecture was confirmed by Mousset, Nenadov and Samotij. Building on work of Marciniszyn, Skokan, Sp\"{o}hel and Steger, we reduce the 0-statement of Kohayakawa and Kreuter's conjecture to a certain deterministic subproblem. To demonstrate the potential of this approach, we show this subproblem can be resolved for almost all pairs of regular graphs. This therefore resolves the 0-statement for all such pairs of graphs.

Motivated by analogous questions in the setting of Steiner triple systems and Latin squares, Nenadov, Sudakov and Wagner [Completion and deficiency problems, Journal of Combinatorial Theory Series B, 2020] recently introduced the notion of graph deficiency. Given a global spanning property $\mathcal P$ and a graph $G$, the deficiency $\text{def}(G)$ of the graph $G$ with respect to the property $\mathcal P$ is the smallest non-negative integer $t$ such that the join $G*K_t$ has property $\mathcal P$. In particular, Nenadov, Sudakov and Wagner raised the question of determining how many edges an $n$-vertex graph $G$ needs to ensure $G*K_t$ contains a $K_r$-factor (for any fixed $r\geq 3$). In this paper we resolve their problem fully. We also give an analogous result which forces $G*K_t$ to contain any fixed bipartite $(n+t)$-vertex graph of bounded degree and small bandwidth., Comment: 12 pages, author accepted manuscript, to appear in Combinatorics, Probability and Computing

Balogh, Csaba, Jing and Pluh\'ar recently determined the minimum degree threshold that ensures a $2$-coloured graph $G$ contains a Hamilton cycle of significant colour bias (i.e., a Hamilton cycle that contains significantly more than half of its edges in one colour). In this short note we extend this result, determining the corresponding threshold for $r$-colourings., Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures. Author accepted manuscript, to appear in the SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics

The study of asymptotic minimum degree thresholds that force matchings and tilings in hypergraphs is a lively area of research in combinatorics. A key breakthrough in this area was a result of H\`{a}n, Person and Schacht who proved that the asymptotic minimum vertex degree threshold for a perfect matching in an $n$-vertex $3$-graph is $\left(\frac{5}{9}+o(1)\right)\binom{n}{2}$. In this paper we improve on this result, giving a family of degree sequence results, all of which imply the result of H\`{a}n, Person and Schacht, and additionally allow one third of the vertices to have degree $\frac{1}{9}\binom{n}{2}$ below this threshold. Furthermore, we show that this result is, in some sense, tight., Comment: 24 pages (including appendix)

A fundamental result of K\"uhn and Osthus [The minimum degree threshold for perfect graph packings, Combinatorica, 2009] determines up to an additive constant the minimum degree threshold that forces a graph to contain a perfect H-tiling. We prove a degree sequence version of this result which allows for a significant number of vertices to have lower degree., Comment: 23 pages, 1 figure

An important result of Koml\'os [Tiling Tur\'an theorems, Combinatorica, 2000] yields the asymptotically exact minimum degree threshold that ensures a graph $G$ contains an $H$-tiling covering an $x$th proportion of the vertices of $G$ (for any fixed $x \in (0,1)$ and graph $H$). We give a degree sequence strengthening of this result which allows for a large proportion of the vertices in the host graph $G$ to have degree substantially smaller than that required by Koml\'os' theorem. We also demonstrate that for certain graphs $H$, the degree sequence condition is essentially best possible in more than one sense., Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures. Author accepted manuscript. To appear in SIDMA

In a sample of about 45,700 early-type galaxies extracted from SDSS, we find that the shape, normalization, and dispersion around the mean size-stellar mass relation is the same for young and old systems, provided the stellar mass is greater than 3*10^10 Msun. This is difficult to reproduce in pure passive evolution models, which generically predict older galaxies to be much more compact than younger ones of the same stellar mass. However, this aspect of our measurements is well reproduced by hierarchical models of galaxy formation. Whereas the models predict more compact galaxies at high redshifts, subsequent minor, dry mergers increase the sizes of the more massive objects, resulting in a flat size-age relation at the present time. At lower masses, the models predict that mergers are less frequent, so that the expected anti-correlation between age and size is not completely erased. This is in good agreement with our data: below 3*10^10 Msun, the effective radius R_e is a factor of ~2 lower for older galaxies. These successes of the models are offset by the fact that the predicted sizes have other serious problems, which we discuss., Comment: 13 pages, 9 Figures, 1 Table. Accepted by MNRAS

We examine the colour-magnitude relation of approximately 5000 Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCGs) in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and compare with non-BCG E/S0 galaxies. The colour-magnitude and colour-sigma (velocity dispersion) relations are flatter in slope (by a factor of about 2) for BCGs than for non-BCG E/S0s, and the BCGs also tend to be redder by 0.01 magnitudes in g-r. We investigate radial colour gradients in both samples, using the ratio of the de Vaucouleurs radii in the g and r bands. We find BCGs have significantly flatter (by 23%) mean colour gradients than other high luminosity E/S0s. In early-type galaxies, the colour gradients are strongest at intermediate luminosities of Mr=-22. Colour gradients in E/S0s increase with radius (up to 10kpc) and are negatively correlated with 10sigma + Mr (velocity dispersion relative to luminosity) and with mass density. The gradients also tend to decrease with increasing stellar age. These trends are weak or not seen in BCGs, in which the mean colour gradient is low whatever the other properties. We discuss possible explanations, which involve a greater amount of dry merging in the formation history of the BCGs., Comment: 16 pages, 24 figures, revised, accepted for publication in MNRAS.

We select a sample of 70378 E/S0 (early-type) galaxies at 0