A {\em thrackle} is a graph drawn in the plane so that every pair of its edges meet exactly once: either at a common end vertex or in a proper crossing. We prove that any thrackle of $n$ vertices has at most $1.3984n$ edges. {\em Quasi-thrackles} are defined similarly, except that every pair of edges that do not share a vertex are allowed to cross an {\em odd} number of times. It is also shown that the maximum number of edges of a quasi-thrackle on $n$ vertices is ${3\over 2}(n-1)$, and that this bound is best possible for infinitely many values of $n$.
A drawing of a graph in the plane is called a thrackle if every pair of edges meets precisely once, either at a common vertex or at a proper crossing. Let t(n) denote the maximum number of edges that a thrackle of n vertices can have. According to a 40 years old conjecture of Conway, t(n)=n for every n>2. For any eps>0, we give an algorithm terminating in e^{O((1/eps^2)ln(1/eps))} steps to decide whether t(n)<(1+eps)n for all n>2. Using this approach, we improve the best known upper bound, t(n)<=3/2(n-1), due to Cairns and Nikolayevsky, to 167/117n<1.428n.
Reay's relaxed Tverberg conjecture and Conway's thrackle conjecture are open problems about the geometry of pairwise intersections. Reay asked for the minimum number of points in Euclidean d-space that guarantees any such point set admits a partition into r parts, any k of whose convex hulls intersect. Here we give new and improved lower bounds for this number, which Reay conjectured to be independent of k. We prove a colored version of Reay's conjecture for k sufficiently large, but nevertheless k independent of dimension d. Requiring convex hulls to intersect pairwise severely restricts comb…
In this paper, we prove a problem proposed by Brešar: for any graphs $G$ and $H$, $Γ(G\square H)\geΓ(G)Γ(H)+ \min\{|V(G)|-Γ(G),|V(H)|-Γ(H)\}$, where $Γ(G)$ denotes the upper domination number of $G$.
An algorithmic upper bound on the domination number $γ$ of graphs in terms of the order $n$ and the minimum degree $δ$ is proved. It is demonstrated that the bound improves best previous bounds for any $5\le δ\le 50$. In particular, for $δ=5$, Xing et al.\ proved in 2006 that $γ\le 5n/14 < 0.3572 n$. This bound is improved to $0.3440 n$. For $δ=6$, Clark et al.\ in 1998 established $γ<0.3377 n$, while Biró et al. recently improved it to $γ<0.3340 n$. Here the bound is further improved to $γ< 0.3159 n$. For $δ=7$, the best earlier bound $0.3 088 n$ is improved to $γ< 0.2927 n$.
We improve Luczak's upper bounds on the length of the longest cycle in the random graph G(n,M) in the "supercritical phase" where M=n/2+s and s=o(n) but n^{2/3}=o(s). The new upper bound is (6.958+o(1))s^2/n with probability 1-o(1) as n approaches infinity. Letting c=1+2s/n, the equivalence between G(n,p) and G(n,M) implies the same result for G(n,p) where p=c/n, c approaching 1, c-1 = omega(n^{-1/3}).
The two-colour Ramsey number $R(m,n)$ is the least natural number $p$ such that any graph of order $p$ must contain either a clique of size $m$ or an independent set of size $n$. We exhibit a method for computing upper bounds for $R(m,n)$ recursively, using known upper bounds of $R(\cdot,\cdot)$ with lower values for at least one of the arguments. We also give an example of how this method could be used to improve several of the best known bounds that are available in the literature (which however soon will be obsolete due to a forthcoming work).
A graph $G$ is terminal-pairable with respect to a demand multigraph $D$ on the same vertex set as $G$, if there exists edge-disjoint paths joining the end vertices of every demand edge of $D$. In this short note, we improve the upper bound on the largest $Δ(n)$ with the property that the complete graph on $n$ vertices is terminal-pairable with respect to any demand multigraph of maximum degree at most $Δ(n)$. This disproves a conjecture originally stated by Csaba, Faudree, Gyárfás, Lehel and Schelp.
For a positive integer $r$, let $G(r)$ be the smallest $N$ such that, whenever the edges of the Cartesian product $K_N \times K_N$ are $r$-coloured, then there is a rectangle in which both pairs of opposite edges receive the same colour. In this paper, we improve the upper bounds on $G(r)$ by proving $G(r) \leq \Big(1 - \frac{1}{128}r^{-2}\Big) r^{\binom{r+1}{2}}$, for $r$ large enough. Unlike the previous improvements, which were based on bounds for the size of set systems with restricted intersection sizes, our proof is a form of a quasirandomness argument.
A linear $3$-graph is a set of vertices along with a set of edges, which are three element subsets of the vertices, such that any two edges intersect in at most one vertex. The crown, $C$, is a specific $3$-graph consisting of three pairwise disjoint edges, called jewels, along with a fourth edge intersecting all three jewels. For a linear $3$-graph, $F$, the linear Turán number, $ex(n,F)$, is the maximum number of edges in any linear $3$-graph that does not contain $F$ as a subgraph. Currently, the best known bounds on the linear Turán number of the crown are \[ 6 \Big \lfloor \frac{n-3}{4}\B…
In the degree-diameter problem for Abelian Cayley and circulant graphs of diameter 2 and arbitrary degree d there is a wide gap between the best lower and upper bounds valid for all d, being quadratic functions with leading coefficient 1/4 and 1/2 respectively. Recent papers have presented constructions which increase the coefficient of the lower bound to be at or just below 3/8, but only for sparse sets of degree d related to primes of specific congruence classes. By applying results from number theory these constructions can be extended to be valid for every degree above some threshold, esta…
An adjacent vertex distinguishing coloring of a graph G is a proper edge coloring of G such that any pair of adjacent vertices are incident with distinct sets of colors. The minimum number of colors needed for an adjacent vertex distinguishing coloring of G is denoted by $χ'_a(G)$. In this paper, we prove that $χ_a'(G)$ <= 5($Δ+2$)/2 for any graph G having maximum degree $Δ$ and no isolated edges. This improves a result in [S. Akbari, H. Bidkhori, N. Nosrati, r-Strong edge colorings of graphs, Discrete Math. 306 (2006), 3005-3010], which states that $χ_a'(G)$ <= 3$Δ$ for any graph G without is…
Let $ES(n)$ denote the minimum natural number such that every set of $ES(n)$ points in general position in the plane contains $n$ points in convex position. In 1935, Erdős and Szekeres proved that $ES(n) \le {2n-4 \choose n-2}+1$. In 1961, they obtained the lower bound $2^{n-2}+1 \le ES(n)$, which they conjectured to be optimal. In this paper, we prove that $$ES(n) \le {2n-5 \choose n-2}-{2n-8 \choose n-3}+2 \approx \frac{7}{16} {2n-4 \choose n-2}.$$
Let $V$ be a set of $n$ points in the plane. For each $x\in V$, let $B_x$ be the closed circular disk centered at $x$ with radius equal to the distance from $x$ to its closest neighbor. The {\it closed sphere of influence graph} on $V$ is defined as the undirected graph where $x$ and $y$ are adjacent if and only if the $B_x$ and $B_y$ have nonempty intersection. It is known that every $n$-vertex closed sphere of influence graph has at most $cn$ edges, for some absolute positive constant $c$. The first result was obtained in 1985 by Avis and Horton who provided the value $c=29$. Their result wa…
Let $r(k)$ denote the maximum number of edges in a $k$-uniform intersecting family with covering number $k$. Erdős and Lovász proved that $ \lfloor k! (e-1) \rfloor \leq r(k) \leq k^k.$ Frankl, Ota, and Tokushige improved the lower bound to $r(k) \geq \left( k/2 \right)^{k-1}$, and Tuza improved the upper bound to $r(k) \leq (1-e^{-1}+o(1))k^k$. We establish that $ r(k) \leq (1 + o(1)) k^{k-1}$.
The bondage number $b(G)$ of a graph $G$ is the smallest number of edges whose removal from $G$ results in a graph with larger domination number. Recently Gagarin and Zverovich showed that, for a graph $G$ with maximum degree $Δ(G)$ and embeddable on an orientable surface of genus $h$ and a non-orientable surface of genus $k$, $b(G)\leq\min\{Δ(G)+h+2,Δ+k+1\}$. They also gave examples showing that adjustments of their proofs implicitly provide better results for larger values of $h$ and $k$. In this paper we establish an improved explicit upper bound for $b(G)$, using the Euler characteristic $…
A partial $t$-spread in $\mathbb{F}_q^n$ is a collection of $t$-dimensional subspaces with trivial intersection such that each non-zero vector is covered at most once. We present some improved upper bounds on the maximum sizes.
In this paper, we prove $\text{ex}(n, C_{2k})\le (16\sqrt{5}\sqrt{k\log k} + o(1))\cdot n^{1+1/k}$. We improved on Bukh--Jiang's method used in their 2017 publication, thereby reducing the best known upper bound by a factor of $\sqrt{5\log k}$.
Ellenberg and Gijswijt gave the best known asymptotic upper bound for the cardinality of subsets of $\mathbb F_q^n$ without 3-term arithmetic progressions. We improve this bound by a factor $\sqrt{n}$. In the case $q=3$, we also obtain more explicit upper bounds for the Cap Set Problem.
The Erdős-Rogers function $f_{s,t}$ measures how large a $K_s$-free induced subgraph there must be in a $K_t$-free graph on $n$ vertices. While good estimates for $f_{s,t}$ are known for some pairs $(s,t)$, notably when $t=s+1$, in general there are significant gaps between the best known upper and lower bounds. We improve the upper bounds when $s+2\leq t\leq 2s-1$. For each such pair we obtain for the first time a proof that $f_{s,t}\leq n^{α_{s,t}+o(1)}$ with an exponent $α_{s,t}<1/2$, answering a question of Dudek, Retter and Rödl.
In 1992, Kalai and Kleitman proved the first subexponential upper bound for the diameters of convex polyhedra. Eisenbrand et al. proved this bound holds for connected layer families, a novel approach to analyzing polytope diameters. Very recently, Todd improved the Kalai-Kleitman bound for polyhedra to $(n-d)^{1+\log_2d}$. In this note, we prove an analogous upper bound on the diameters of subset partition graphs satisfying a property related to the connectivity property of connected layer families.
We give an improved analysis of the best-of-many Christofides algorithm with lonely edge deletion, which was proposed by Sebő and van Zuylen [2016]. This implies an improved upper bound on the integrality ratio of the standard LP relaxation for the $s$-$t$-path TSP.
In this paper we investigate the integrality ratio of the standard LP relaxation for the metric $s-t$ Path TSP. We make a near-optimal choice for an auxiliary function used in the analysis of Traub and Vygen which leads to an improved upper bound on the integrality ratio of 1.5273.
We revisit the problem of determining the independent domination number in hypercubes for which the known upper bound is still not tight for general dimensions. We present here a constructive method to build an independent dominating set $S_n$ for the $n$-dimensional hypercube $Q_n$, where $n=2p+1$, $p$ being a positive integer $\ge 1$, provided an independent dominating set $S_p$ for the $p$-dimensional hypercube $Q_p$, is known. The procedure also computes the minimum independent dominating set for all $n=2^k-1$, $k>1$. Finally, we establish that the independent domination number $α_n\leq 3 …
For nonnegative integers $n$ and $d$, let $A(n,d)$ be the maximum cardinality of a binary code of length $n$ and minimum distance at least $d$. We consider a slight sharpening of the semidefinite programming bound of Gijswijt, Mittelmann and Schrijver, and obtain that $A(18,8)\leq 70$.
A partial $(k-1)$-spread in $\operatorname{PG}(n-1,q)$ is a collection of $(k-1)$-dimensional subspaces with trivial intersection, i.e., each point is covered at most once. So far the maximum size of a partial $(k-1)$-spread in $\operatorname{PG}(n-1,q)$ was known for the cases $n\equiv 0\pmod k$, $n\equiv 1\pmod k$ and $n\equiv 2\pmod k$ with the additional requirements $q=2$ and $k=3$. We completely resolve the case $n\equiv 2\pmod k$ for the binary case $q=2$.
We say that a set is a multiplicative 3-Sidon set if the equation $s_1s_2s_3=t_1t_2t_3$ does not have a solution consisting of distinct elements taken from this set. In this paper we show that the size of a multiplicative 3-Sidon subset of $\{1,2,\dots,n\}$ is at most $π(n)+π(n/2)+n^{2/3}(\log n )^{2^{1/3}-1/3+o(1)}$, which improves the previously known best bound $π(n)+π(n/2)+cn^{2/3}\log n/\log\log n$.
We give an improved upper bound for the Grünbaum--Hadwiger--Ramos problem: Let $d,n,k \in \mathbb{N}$ such that $d \geq 2^n(1+2^{k-1})$. Given $2^{n+1}$ masses on $\mathbb{R}^d$, there exist $k$ hyperplanes in $\mathbb{R}^d$ that partition it into $2^k$ sets of equal size with respect to all measures. This is an improvement to the previous bound $d \geq 2^{n + k}$ by Mani-Levitska, Vrećica & Živaljević in 2006. This is achieved by classifying the number of certain Gray code patterns modulo 2. The reduction was developed by Blagojević, Frick, Haase & Ziegler in 2016. It utilizes the group actio…
An improved upper bound for the planar Turán number of $C_8$
School of Mathematics and Statistics, Xidian University（西安电子科技大学数学与统计学院）；School of Mathematics, Shandong University（山东大学数学学院）；Data Science Institute, Shandong University（山东大学数据科学研究院）
Yangzhou University（扬州大学）；HUN-REN Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics（匈牙利科学院阿尔弗雷德·雷尼数学研究所）；University of Bristol（布里斯托大学）；University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学）
In arrangements of pseudocircles (Jordan curves) the weight of a vertex (intersection point) is the number of pseudocircles that contain the vertex in its interior. We give improved upper bounds on the number of vertices of weight <=k in certain arrangements of pseudocircles in the plane. In particular, forbidding certain subarrangements we improve the known bound of 6n-12 (cf. Kedem et al., 1986) for vertices of weight 0 in arrangements of n pseudocircles to 4n-6. In complete arrangements (i.e. arrangements with each two pseudocircles intersecting) we identify two subarrangements of three and…
In $r$-neighbor bootstrap percolation on the vertex set of a graph $G$, a set $A$ of initially infected vertices spreads by infecting, at each time step, all uninfected vertices with at least $r$ previously infected neighbors. When the elements of $A$ are chosen independently with some probability $p$, it is natural to study the critical probability $p_c(G,r)$ at which it becomes likely that all of $V(G)$ will eventually become infected. Improving a result of Balogh, Bollobás, and Morris, we give a bound on the second term in the expansion of the critical probability when $G = [n]^d$ and $d \g…
Improved Rate-versus-Distance Upper Bounds for LDPC Codes
Research Center for Mathematics and Interdisciplinary Sciences, Shandong University（山东大学数学与交叉科学研究中心）；Frontiers Science Center for Nonlinear Expectations, Ministry of Education（教育部非线性预期前沿科学中心）
Mixed fault diameter of a graph $G$, $ \D_{(a,b)}(G)$, is the maximal diameter of $G$ after deletion of any $a$ vertices and any $b$ edges. Special cases are the (vertex) fault diameter $\D^V_{a} = \D_{(a,0)}$ and the edge fault diameter $\D^E_{a} = \D_{(0,a)}$. Let $G$ be a Cartesian graph bundle with fibre $F$ over the base graph $B$. We show that (1) $\D^V_{a+b+1}(G)\leq \D^V_{a}(F)+\D^V_{b}(B)$ when the graphs $F$ and $B$ are $k_F$-connected and $k_B$-connected, $0< a < k_F$, $0< b < k_B$, and provided that $\D_{(a-1,1)}(F)\leq \D^{V}_{a} (F)$ and $\D_{(b-1,1)}(B)\leq \D^{V}_{b} (B)$ and (…
The acyclic edge colouring problem is extensively studied in graph theory. The corner-stone of this field is a conjecture of Alon et. al.\cite{alonacyclic} that $a'(G)\le Δ(G)+2$. In that and subsequent work, $a'(G)$ is typically bounded in terms of $Δ(G)$. Motivated by this we introduce a term $gap(G)$ defined as $gap(G)=a'(G)-Δ(G)$. Alon's conjecture can be rephrased as $gap(G)\le2$ for all graphs $G$. In \cite{manusccartprod} it was shown that $a'(G\Box H)\le a'(G)+a'(H)$, under some assumptions. Based on Alon's conjecture, we conjecture that $a'(G\Box H)\le a'(G)+Δ(H)$ under the same assum…
We improve the previously best known lower and upper bounds on the number n_g of numerical semigroups of genus g. Starting from a known recursive description of the tree T of numerical semigroups, we analyze some of its properties and use them to construct approximations of T by generating trees whose nodes are labeled by certain parameters of the semigroups. We then translate the succession rules of these trees into functional equations for the generating functions that enumerate their nodes, and solve these equations to obtain the bounds. Some of our bounds involve the Fibonacci numbers, and…
We show an improved upper estimate for van der Waerden number $W(3,k):$ there is an absolute constant $c>0$ such that if $\{1,\dots,N\}=X\cup Y$ is a partition such that $X$ does not contain any arithmetic progression of length $3$ and $Y$ does not contain any arithmetic progression of length $k$ then $$N\le \exp(O(k^{1-c}))\,.$$
