The hypergraph regularity lemma -- the extension of Szemerédi's graph regularity lemma to the setting of $k$-uniform hypergraphs -- is one of the most celebrated combinatorial results obtained in the past decade. By now there are several (very different) proofs of this lemma, obtained by Gowers, by Nagle-Rödl-Schacht-Skokan and by Tao. Unfortunately, what all these proofs have in common is that they yield regular partitions whose order is given by the $k$-th Ackermann function. We show that such Ackermann-type bounds are unavoidable for every $k \ge 2$, thus confirming a prediction of Tao.
Prior to our work, the only result of the above type was Gowers' famous lower bound for graph regularity. In this paper we describe the key new ideas which enable us to overcome several barriers which stood in the way of establishing such bounds for hypergraphs of higher uniformity. One of them is a tight bound for a new (very weak) version of the {\em graph} regularity lemma. Using this bound, we prove a lower bound for any regularity lemma of $3$-uniform hypergraphs that satisfies certain mild conditions. We then show how to use this result in order to prove a tight bound for the hypergraph regularity lemmas of Gowers and Frankl--Rödl. We will obtain similar results for hypergraphs of arbitrary uniformity $k\geq 2$ in a subsequent paper.
We give a new approach to handling hypergraph regularity. This approach allows for vertex-by-vertex embedding into regular partitions of hypergraphs, and generalises to regular partitions of sparse hypergraphs. We also prove a corresponding sparse hypergraph regularity lemma.
The hypergraph regularity lemma -- the extension of Szemerédi's graph regularity lemma to the setting of $k$-uniform hypergraphs -- is one of the most celebrated combinatorial results obtained in the past decade. By now there are several (very different) proofs of this lemma, obtained by Gowers, by Nagle-Rödl-Schacht-Skokan and by Tao. Unfortunately, what all these proofs have in common is that they yield regular partitions whose order is given by the $k$-th Ackermann function. In a recent paper we have shown that these bounds are unavoidable for $3$-uniform hypergraphs. In this paper we exten…
We prove that any $3$-uniform hypergraph whose minimum vertex degree is at least $\left(\frac{5}{9} + o(1) \right)\binom{n}{2}$ admits an almost-spanning tight cycle, that is, a tight cycle leaving $o(n)$ vertices uncovered. The bound on the vertex degree is asymptotically best possible. Our proof uses the hypergraph regularity method, and in particular a recent version of the hypergraph regularity lemma proved by Allen, Böttcher, Cooley and Mycroft.
In this paper, we prove a theorem on tight paths in convex geometric hypergraphs, which is asymptotically sharp in infinitely many cases. Our geometric theorem is a common generalization of early results of Hopf and Pannwitz [12], Sutherland [19], Kupitz and Perles [16] for convex geometric graphs, as well as the classical Erdős-Gallai Theorem [6] for graphs. As a consequence, we obtain the first substantial improvement on the Turán problem for tight paths in uniform hypergraphs.
We show that for every η > 0 there exists an integer n_0 such that every 2-colouring of the 3-uniform complete hypergraph on n \geq n_0 vertices contains two disjoint monochromatic tight cycles of distinct colours that together cover all but at most ηn vertices. The same result holds if we replace tight cycles with loose cycles.
In this paper we show that $e/n$ is the sharp threshold for the existence of tight Hamilton cycles in random $k$-uniform hypergraphs, for all $k\ge 4$. When $k=3$ we show that $1/n$ is an asymptotic threshold. We also determine thresholds for the existence of other types of Hamilton cycles.
The perfect matching polytope, i.e. the convex hull of (incidence vectors of) perfect matchings of a graph is used in many combinatorial algorithms. Kotzig, Lovász and Plummer developed a decomposition theory for graphs with perfect matchings and their corresponding polytopes known as the tight cut decomposition which breaks down every graph into a number of indecomposable graphs, so called bricks. For many properties that are of interest on graphs with perfect matchings, including the description of the perfect matching polytope, it suffices to consider these bricks. A key result by Lovász on…
We show that every 4-uniform hypergraph with $n$ vertices and minimum pair degree at least $(5/9+o(1))n^2/2$ contains a tight Hamiltonian cycle. This degree condition is asymptotically optimal.
We study properties of random subcomplexes of partitions returned by (a suitable form of) the Strong Hypergraph Regularity Lemma, which we call regular slices. We argue that these subcomplexes capture many important structural properties of the original hypergraph. Accordingly we advocate their use in extremal hypergraph theory, and explain how they can lead to considerable simplifications in existing proofs in this field. We also use them for establishing the following two new results. Firstly, we prove a hypergraph extension of the Erdős-Gallai Theorem: for every $δ>0$ every sufficiently lar…
We define a new combinatorial object, which we call a labeled hypergraph, uniquely associated to any square-free monomial ideal. We prove several upper bounds on the regularity of a square-free monomial ideal in terms of simple combinatorial properties of its labeled hypergraph. We also give specific formulas for the regularity of square-free monomial ideals with certain labeled hypergraphs. Furthermore, we prove results in the case of one-dimensional labeled hypergraphs.
We show that every $r$-uniform hypergraph on $n$ vertices which does not contain a tight cycle has at most $O(n^{r-1} (\log n)^5)$ edges. This is an improvement on the previously best-known bound, of $n^{r-1} e^{O(\sqrt{\log n})}$, due to Sudakov and Tomon, and our proof builds up on their work. A recent construction of B. Janzer implies that our bound is tight up to an $O((\log n)^4 \log \log n)$ factor.
We show that every 3-uniform hypergraph with $n$ vertices and minimum vertex degree at least $(5/9+o(1))\binom{n}2$ contains a tight Hamiltonian cycle. Known lower bound constructions show that this degree condition is asymptotically optimal.
We define the Eulerian ideal of a $k$-uniform hypergraph and study its degree and Castelnuovo--Mumford regularity. The main tool is a Gröbner basis of the ideal obtained combinatorially from the hypergraph. We define the notion of parity join in a hypergraph and show that the regularity of the Eulerian ideal is equal to the maximum cardinality of such a set of edges. The formula for the degree involves the cardinality of the set of sets of vertices, $T$, that admit a $T$-join. We compute the degree and regularity explicity in the cases of a complete $k$-partite hypergraph and a complete hyperg…
A tight $k$-uniform $\ell$-cycle, denoted by $TC_\ell^k$, is a $k$-uniform hypergraph whose vertex set is $v_0, \cdots, v_{\ell-1}$, and the edges are all the $k$-tuples $\{v_i, v_{i+1}, \cdots, v_{i+k-1}\}$, with subscripts modulo $\ell$. Motivated by a classic result in graph theory that every $n$-vertex cycle-free graph has at most $n-1$ edges, Sós and, independently, Verstraëte asked whether for every integer $k$, a $k$-uniform $n$-vertex hypergraph without any tight $k$-uniform cycles has at most $\binom{n-1}{k-1}$ edges. In this paper, we answer this question in negative.
An $r$-uniform tight cycle of length $\ell>r$ is a hypergraph with vertices $v_1,\dots,v_\ell$ and edges $\{v_i,v_{i+1},\dots,v_{i+r-1}\}$ (for all $i$), with the indices taken modulo $\ell$. It was shown by Sudakov and Tomon that for each fixed $r\geq 3$, an $r$-uniform hypergraph on $n$ vertices which does not contain a tight cycle of any length has at most $n^{r-1+o(1)}$ hyperedges, but the best known construction (with the largest number of edges) only gives $Ω(n^{r-1})$ edges. In this note we prove that, for each fixed $r\geq 3$, there are $r$-uniform hypergraphs with $Ω(n^{r-1}\log n/\lo…
We study sufficient conditions for the existence of Hamilton cycles in uniformly dense $3$-uniform hypergraphs. Problems of this type were first considered by Lenz, Mubayi, and Mycroft for loose Hamilton cycles and Aigner-Horev and Levy considered it for tight Hamilton cycles for a fairly strong notion of uniformly dense hypergraphs. We focus on tight cycles and obtain optimal results for a weaker notion of uniformly dense hypergraphs. We show that if an $n$-vertex $3$-uniform hypergraph $H=(V,E)$ has the property that for any set of vertices $X$ and for any collection $P$ of pairs of vertices…
We give an algorithmic proof for the existence of tight Hamilton cycles in a random r-uniform hypergraph with edge probability p=n^{-1+eps} for every eps>0. This partly answers a question of Dudek and Frieze [Random Structures Algorithms], who used a second moment method to show that tight Hamilton cycles exist even for p=omega(n)/n (r>2) where omega(n) tends to infinity arbitrary slowly, and for p=(e+o(1))/n (r>3). The method we develop for proving our result applies to related problems as well.
We present a systematic study of the regularity phenomena for NIP hypergraphs and connections to the theory of (locally) generically stable measures, providing a model-theoretic hypergraph version of the results from [L. Lovász, B. Szegedy, "Regularity partitions and the topology of graphons", An irregular mind, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2010, 415-446]. Besides, we revise the two extremal cases of regularity for stable and distal hypergraphs, improving and generalizing the results from [A. Chernikov, S. Starchenko, "Regularity lemma for distal structures", J. Eur. Math. Soc. 20 (2018), 2437-…
We say that a $k$-uniform hypergraph $C$ is a Hamilton cycle of type $\ell$, for some $1\le \ell \le k$, if there exists a cyclic ordering of the vertices of $C$ such that every edge consists of $k$ consecutive vertices and for every pair of consecutive edges $E_{i-1},E_i$ in $C$ (in the natural ordering of the edges) we have $|E_{i-1}\setminus E_i|=\ell$. We define a class of $(\e,p)$-regular hypergraphs, that includes random hypergraphs, for which we can prove the existence of a decomposition of almost all edges into type $\ell$ Hamilton cycles, where $\ell<k/2$.
Confirming a conjecture of Gyárfás, we prove that, for all natural numbers $k$ and $r$, the vertices of every $r$-edge-coloured complete $k$-uniform hypergraph can be partitioned into a bounded number (independent of the size of the hypergraph) of monochromatic tight cycles. We further prove that, for for all natural numbers $p$ and $r$, the vertices of every $r$-edge-coloured complete graph can be partitioned into a bounded number of $p$-th powers of cycles, settling a problem of Elekes, Soukup, Soukup and Szentmiklóssy. In fact we prove a common generalisation of both theorems which further …
An $r$-uniform hypergraph is a tight $r$-tree if its edges can be ordered so that every edge $e$ contains a vertex $v$ that does not belong to any preceding edge and the set $e-v$ lies in some preceding edge. A conjecture of Kalai [Kalai], generalizing the Erdős-Sós Conjecture for trees, asserts that if $T$ is a tight $r$-tree with $t$ edges and $G$ is an $n$-vertex $r$-uniform hypergraph containing no copy of $T$ then $G$ has at most $\frac{t-1}{r}\binom{n}{r-1}$ edges. A trunk $T'$ of a tight $r$-tree $T$ is a tight subtree such that every edge of $T-T'$ has $r-1$ vertices in some edge of $T…
For integers $k \geq 3$ and $r\geq 2$, we show that for every $α> 0$, there exists $\varepsilon > 0$ such that the union of $k$-uniform hypergraph on $n$ vertices with minimum codegree at least $αn$ and a binomial random $k$-uniform hypergraph $G^{(k)}(n,p)$ with $p\geq n^{-{\binom{k+r-2}{k-1}}^{-1}-\varepsilon}$ on the same vertex set contains the $r^{th}$ power of a tight Hamilton cycle with high probability. Moreover, a construction shows that one cannot take $\varepsilon > Cα$, where $C=C(k,r)$ is a constant. Thus the bound on $p$ is optimal up to the value of $\varepsilon$ and this answer…
Let H be a 3-uniform hypergraph with N vertices. A tight Hamilton cycle C \subset H is a collection of N edges for which there is an ordering of the vertices v_1, ..., v_N such that every triple of consecutive vertices {v_i, v_{i+1}, v_{i+2}} is an edge of C (indices are considered modulo N). We develop new techniques which enable us to prove that under certain natural pseudo-random conditions, almost all edges of H can be covered by edge-disjoint tight Hamilton cycles, for N divisible by 4. Consequently, we derive the corollary that random 3-uniform hypergraphs can be almost completely packed…
Let $H$ be an $n$-vertex 3-uniform hypergraph such that every pair of vertices is in at least $n/3+o(n)$ edges. We show that $H$ contains two vertex-disjoint tight paths whose union covers the vertex set of $H$. The quantity two here is best possible and the degree condition is asymptotically best possible. This result also has an interpretation as the \emph{deficiency problems}, recently introduced by Nenadov, Sudakov and Wagner: every such $H$ can be made Hamiltonian by adding at most two vertices and all triples intersecting them.
We prove a lower bound on the length of the longest $j$-tight cycle in a $k$-uniform binomial random hypergraph for any $2 \le j \le k-1$. We first prove the existence of a $j$-tight path of the required length. The standard "sprinkling" argument is not enough to show that this path can be closed to a $j$-tight cycle -- we therefore show that the path has many extensions, which is sufficient to allow the sprinkling to close the cycle.
A tight $r$-tree $T$ is an $r$-uniform hypergraph that has an edge-ordering $e_1, e_2, \dots, e_t$ such that for each $i\geq 2$, $e_i$ has a vertex $v_i$ that does not belong to any previous edge and $e_i-v_i$ is contained in $e_j$ for some $j<i$. Kalai conjectured in 1984 that every $n$-vertex $r$-uniform hypergraph with more than $\frac{t-1}{r}\binom{n}{r-1}$ edges contains every tight $r$-tree $T$ with $t$ edges. A trunk $T'$ of a tight $r$-tree $T$ is a tight subtree $T'$ of $T$ such that vertices in $V(T)\setminus V(T')$ are leaves in $T$. Kalai's Conjecture was proved in 1987 for tight $…
Suppose a $k$-uniform hypergraph $H$ that satisfies a certain regularity instance (that is, there is a partition of $H$ given by the hypergraph regularity lemma into a bounded number of quasirandom subhypergraphs of prescribed densities). We prove that with high probability a large enough uniform random sample of the vertex set of $H$ also admits the same regularity instance. Here the crucial feature is that the error term measuring the quasirandomness of the subhypergraphs requires only an arbitrarily small additive correction. This has applications to combinatorial property testing. The grap…
We give a probabilistic construction of a $3$-uniform hypergraph on $N$ vertices with independence number $O(\log N / \log \log N)$ in which there are at most two edges among any four vertices. This bound is tight and solves a longstanding open problem of Erdős and Hajnal in Ramsey theory. We further extend this result to prove tight bounds on various other hypergraph Ramsey numbers.
We obtain a hypergraph generalisation of the graph blow-up lemma proved by Komlos, Sarkozy and Szemeredi, showing that hypergraphs with sufficient regularity and no atypical vertices behave as if they were complete for the purpose of embedding bounded degree hypergraphs.
Fox, Gromov, Lafforgue, Naor, and Pach proved a regularity lemma for semi-algebraic $k$-uniform hypergraphs of bounded complexity, showing that for each $ε>0$ the vertex set can be equitably partitioned into a bounded number of parts (in terms of $ε$ and the complexity) so that all but an $ε$-fraction of the $k$-tuples of parts are homogeneous. We prove that the number of parts can be taken to be polynomial in $1/ε$. Our improved regularity lemma can be applied to geometric problems and to the following general question on property testing: is it possible to decide, with query complexity polyn…
We employ the absorbing-path method in order to prove two results regarding the emergence of tight Hamilton cycles in the so called {\em two-path} or {\em cherry}-quasirandom $3$-graphs. Our first result asserts that for any fixed real $α>0$, cherry-quasirandom $3$-graphs of sufficiently large order $n$ having minimum $2$-degree at least $α(n-2)$ have a tight Hamilton cycle. Our second result concerns the minimum $1$-degree sufficient for such $3$-graphs to have a tight Hamilton cycle. Roughly speaking, we prove that for every $d,α>0$ satisfying $d + α>1$, any sufficiently large $n$-vertex suc…
For $k\ge 2$ and $r\ge 1$ such that $k+r\ge 4$, we prove that, for any $α>0$, there exists $ε>0$ such that the union of an $n$-vertex $k$-graph with minimum codegree $\left(1-\binom{k+r-2}{k-1}^{-1}+α\right)n$ and a binomial random $k$-graph $\mathbb{G}^{(k)}(n,p)$ with $p\ge n^{-\binom{k+r-2}{k-1}^{-1}-ε}$ on the same vertex set contains the $r^{\text{th}}$ power of a tight Hamilton cycle with high probability. This result for $r=1$ was first proved by McDowell and Mycroft.
In an $r$-uniform hypergraph on $n$ vertices a tight Hamilton cycle consists of $n$ edges such that there exists a cyclic ordering of the vertices where the edges correspond to consecutive segments of $r$ vertices. We provide a first deterministic polynomial time algorithm, which finds a.a.s. tight Hamilton cycles in random $r$-uniform hypergraphs with edge probability at least $C \log^3n/n$. Our result partially answers a question of Dudek and Frieze [Random Structures & Algorithms 42 (2013), 374-385] who proved that tight Hamilton cycles exists already for $p=ω(1/n)$ for $r=3$ and $p=(e + o(…
A sequence of $k$-uniform hypergraphs $H_1, H_2, \dots$ is convergent if the sequence of homomorphism densities $t(F, H_1), t(F, H_2), \dots$ converges for every $k$-uniform hypergraph $F$. For graphs, Lovász and Szegedy showed that every convergent sequence has a limit in the form of a symmetric measurable function $W \colon [0,1]^2 \to [0,1]$. For hypergraphs, analogous limits $W \colon [0,1]^{2^k-2} \to [0,1]$ were constructed by Elek and Szegedy using ultraproducts. These limits had also been studied earlier by Hoover, Aldous, and Kallenberg in the setting of exchangeable random arrays. In…
We generalize the fact that graphs with small VC-dimension can be approximated by rectangles, showing that hypergraphs with small VC_k-dimension (equivalently, omitting a fixed finite (k+1)-partite (k+1)-uniform hypergraph) can be approximated by k-ary cylinder sets. In the language of hypergraph regularity, this shows that when H is a k'-uniform hypergraph with small VC_k-dimension for some k<k', the decomposition of H given by hypergraph regularity only needs the first k levels---one can approximate H using sets of vertices, sets of pairs, and so on up to sets of k-tuples---and that on most …
Given integers $k,j$ with $1\le j \le k-1$, we consider the length of the longest $j$-tight path in the binomial random $k$-uniform hypergraph $H^k(n,p)$. We show that this length undergoes a phase transition from logarithmic length to linear and determine the critical threshold, as well as proving upper and lower bounds on the length in the subcritical and supercritical ranges. In particular, for the supercritical case we introduce the `Pathfinder' algorithm, a depth-first search algorithm which discovers $j$-tight paths in a $k$-uniform hypergraph. We prove that, in the supercritical case, w…
Szemerédi's regularity lemma is a powerful tool in graph theory. It states that for every large enough graph, there exists a partition of the edge set with bounded size such that most induced subgraphs are quasirandom. When the graph is a definable set $ϕ(x, y)$ in a finite field $F_q$, Tao's algebraic graph regularity lemma shows that there is a partition of the graph $ϕ(x, y)$ such that all induced subgraphs are quasirandom and the error bound on quasirandomness is $O(q^{-1/4})$. In this work we prove an algebraic hypergraph regularity lemma for definable sets in finite fields, thus answerin…
The hypergraph Ramsey number of two $3$-uniform hypergraphs $G$ and $H$, denoted by $R(G,H)$, is the least integer $N$ such that every red-blue edge-coloring of the complete $3$-uniform hypergraph on $N$ vertices contains a red copy of $G$ or a blue copy of $H$. The Fano plane $\mathbb{F}$ is the unique 3-uniform hypergraph with seven edges on seven vertices in which every pair of vertices is contained in a unique edge. There is a simple construction showing that $R(H,\mathbb{F}) \ge 2(v(H)-1) + 1.$ Hypergraphs $H$ for which the equality holds are called $\mathbb{F}$-good. Conlon asked to dete…
Let $\H$ be a unimodular hypergraph over the vertex set $[n]$ and let $J(\H)$ be the cover ideal of $\H$ in the polynomial ring $R=K[x_1,\ldots,x_n]$. We show that $\reg J(\H)^s$ is a linear function in $s$ for all $s\geqslant r\left\lceil \frac{n}{2}\right\rceil+1$ where $r$ is the rank of $\H$. Moreover for every $i$, $a_i(R/J(\H)^s)$ is also a linear function in $s$ for $s \geqslant n^2$.
For $s \ge 4$, the 3-uniform tight cycle $C^3_s$ has vertex set corresponding to $s$ distinct points on a circle and edge set given by the $s$ cyclic intervals of three consecutive points. For fixed $s \ge 4$ and $s \not\equiv 0$ (mod 3) we prove that there are positive constants $a$ and $b$ with $$2^{at}<r(C^3_s, K^3_t)<2^{bt^2\log t}.$$ The lower bound is obtained via a probabilistic construction. The upper bound for $s>5$ is proved by using supersaturation and the known upper bound for $r(K_4^{3}, K_t^3)$, while for $s=5$ it follows from a new upper bound for $r(K_5^{3-}, K_t^3)$ that we de…
Recently, several hypergraph Turán problems were solved by the powerful random algebraic method. However, the random algebraic method usually requires some parameters to be very large, hence we are concerned about how these Turán numbers depend on such large parameters of the forbidden hypergraphs. In this paper, we determine the dependence on such specified large constant for several hypergraph Turán problems. More specifically, for complete $r$-partite $r$-uniform hypergraphs, we show that if $s_{r}$ is sufficiently larger than $s_{1},s_{2},\ldots,s_{r-1},$ then $$\textup{ex}_{r}(n,K_{s_{1},…
We answer a question of Gyárfás and Sárközy from 2013 by showing that every 2-edge-coloured complete 3-uniform hypergraph can be partitioned into two monochromatic tight paths of different colours. We also give a lower bound for the number of tight paths needed to partition any 2-edge-coloured complete r-partite r-uniform hypergraph. Finally, we show that any 2-edge-coloured complete bipartite graph has a partition into a monochromatic cycle and a monochromatic path, of different colours, unless the colouring is a split colouring.
