By using a $q$-analogue of the "magic" matrix introduced by H.Huang in his elegant solution of the sensitivity conjecture, we give a direct generalization of his result, replacing a hypercube graph by a Cartesian power of a directed $l$-cycle.
We classify connected spanning convex subgraphs of the square cycles. We then show that every spanning tree of $C_n^2$ is contained in a unique nontrivial connected spanning convex subgraph of $C_n^2$. As a result, we obtain a purely combinatorial derivation of the formula for the number of spanning trees of the square cycles.
We study the resilience of random and pseudorandom directed graphs with respect to the property of having long directed cycles. For every $0 < γ< 1/2$ we find a constant $c=c(γ)$ such that the following holds. Let $G=(V,E)$ be a (pseudo)random directed graph on $n$ vertices, and let $G'$ be a subgraph of $G$ with $(1/2+γ)|E|$ edges. Then $G'$ contains a directed cycle of length at least $(c-o(1))n$. Moreover, there is a subgraph $G''$ of $G$ with $(1/2+γ-o(1))|E|$ edges that does not contain a cycle of length at least $cn$.
We study graphs on $n$ vertices which have $2n-2$ edges and no proper induced subgraphs of minimum degree $3$. Erdős, Faudree, Gyárfás, and Schelp conjectured that such graphs always have cycles of lengths $3,4,5,\dots, C(n)$ for some function $C(n)$ tending to infinity. We disprove this conjecture, resolve a related problem about leaf-to-leaf path lengths in trees, and characterize graphs with $n$ vertices and $2n-2$ edges, containing no proper subgraph of minimum degree $3$.
Let $G$ be a graph on $n$ vertices. A vertex of $G$ with degree at least $n/2$ is called a heavy vertex, and a cycle of $G$ which contains all the heavy vertices of $G$ is called a heavy cycle. In this paper, we characterize the graphs which contain no heavy cycles. For a given graph $H$, we say that $G$ is $H$-\emph{heavy} if every induced subgraph of $G$ isomorphic to $H$ contains two nonadjacent vertices with degree sum at least $n$. We find all the connected graphs $S$ such that a 2-connected graph $G$ being $S$-heavy implies any longest cycle of $G$ is a heavy cycle.
In this paper we modify slightly Razborov's flag algebra machinery to be suitable for the hypercube. We use this modified method to show that the maximum number of edges of a 4-cycle-free subgraph of the n-dimensional hypercube is at most 0.6068 times the number of its edges. We also improve the upper bound on the number of edges for 6-cycle-free subgraphs of the n-dimensional hypercube from the square root of 2 - 1 to 0.3755 times the number of its edges. Additionally, we show that if the n-dimensional hypercube is considered as a poset, then the maximum vertex density of three middle layers …
Fix $k \ge 2$ and let $H$ be a graph with $χ(H) = k+1$ containing a critical edge. We show that for sufficiently large $n$, the unique $n$-vertex $H$-free graph containing the maximum number of cycles is $T_k(n)$. This resolves both a question and a conjecture of Arman, Gunderson and Tsaturian.
It is an intriguing question to see what kind of information on the structure of an oriented graph $D$ one can obtain if $D$ does not contain a fixed oriented graph $H$ as a subgraph. The related question in the unoriented case has been an active area of research, and is relatively well-understood in the theory of quasi-random graphs and extremal combinatorics. In this paper, we consider the simplest cases of such a general question for oriented graphs, and provide some results on the global behavior of the orientation of $D$. For the case that $H$ is an oriented four-cycle we prove: in every …
Dirac subgraphs of powers of cycles are Hamiltonian
Departament de Matemàtiques, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya(加泰罗尼亚理工大学数学系);Centre de Recerca Matemàtica(数学研究中心);University of Oxford(牛津大学);Fachbereich Mathematik, Universität Hamburg(汉堡大学数学系);Department of Mathematics, Stanford University(斯坦福大学数学系)
Given graphs $G$ and $H$, the generalized Turán number ${\rm ex}(G,H)$ is the maximum number of edges in an $H$-free subgraph of $G$. In this paper, we obtain an asymptotic upper bound on ${\rm ex}(CT_n,C_{2l})$ for any $n \ge 3$ and $l\geq2$, where $C_{2l}$ is the cycle of length $2l$ and $CT_n$ is the complete transposition graph which is defined as the Cayley graph on the symmetric group ${\rm S}_n$ with respect to the set of all transpositions of ${\rm S}_n$.
We study two extremal problems about subgraphs excluding a family $\F$ of graphs. i) Among all graphs with $m$ edges, what is the smallest size $f(m,\F)$ of a largest $\F$--free subgraph? ii) Among all graphs with minimum degree $δ$ and maximum degree $Δ$, what is the smallest minimum degree $h(δ,Δ,\F)$ of a spanning $\F$--free subgraph with largest minimum degree? These questions are easy to answer for families not containing any bipartite graph. We study the case where $\F$ is composed of all even cycles of length at most $2r$, $r\geq 2$. In this case, we give bounds on $f(m,\F)$ and $h(δ,Δ,…
If ${\cal F}$ is a set of subgraphs $F$ of a finite graph $E$ we define a graph-counting polynomial $$ p_{\cal F}(z)=\sum_{F\in{\cal F}}z^{|F|} $$ In the present note we consider oriented graphs and discuss some cases where ${\cal F}$ consists of unbranched subgraphs $E$. We find several situations where something can be said about the location of the zeros of $p_{\cal F}$.
The strong cycle double cover conjecture states that for every circuit $C$ of a bridgeless cubic graph $G$, there is a cycle double cover of $G$ which contains $C$. We conjecture that there is even a 5-cycle double cover $S$ of $G$ which contains $C$, i.e. $C$ is a subgraph of one of the five 2-regular subgraphs of $S$. We prove a necessary and sufficient condition for a 2-regular subgraph to be contained in a 5-cycle double cover of $G$.
For a given finite graph $G$ of minimum degree at least $k$, let $G_{p}$ be a random subgraph of $G$ obtained by taking each edge independently with probability $p$. We prove that (i) if $p \ge ω/k$ for a function $ω=ω(k)$ that tends to infinity as $k$ does, then $G_p$ asymptotically almost surely contains a cycle (and thus a path) of length at least $(1-o(1))k$, and (ii) if $p \ge (1+o(1))\ln k/k$, then $G_p$ asymptotically almost surely contains a path of length at least $k$. Our theorems extend classical results on paths and cycles in the binomial random graph, obtained by taking $G$ to be …
A minimum feedback arc set of a directed graph $G$ is a smallest set of arcs whose removal makes $G$ acyclic. Its cardinality is denoted by $β(G)$. We show that an Eulerian digraph with $n$ vertices and $m$ arcs has $β(G) \ge m^2/2n^2+m/2n$, and this bound is optimal for infinitely many $m, n$. Using this result we prove that an Eulerian digraph contains a cycle of length at most $6n^2/m$, and has an Eulerian subgraph with minimum degree at least $m^2/24n^3$. Both estimates are tight up to a constant factor. Finally, motivated by a conjecture of Bollobás and Scott, we also show how to find lon…
A subgraph of an edge-coloured complete graph is called rainbow if all its edges have different colours. In 1980 Hahn conjectured that every properly edge-coloured complete graph $K_n$ has a rainbow Hamiltonian path. Although this conjecture turned out to be false, it was widely believed that such a colouring always contains a rainbow cycle of length almost $n$. In this paper, improving on several earlier results, we confirm this by proving that every properly edge-coloured $K_n$ has a rainbow cycle of length $n-O(n^{3/4})$. One of the main ingredients of our proof, which is of independent int…
An acyclic set in a digraph is a set of vertices that induces an acyclic subgraph. In 2011, Harutyunyan conjectured that every planar digraph on $n$ vertices without directed 2-cycles possesses an acyclic set of size at least $3n/5$. We prove this conjecture for digraphs where every directed cycle has length at least 8. More generally, if $g$ is the length of the shortest directed cycle, we show that there exists an acyclic set of size at least $(1 - 3/g)n$.
The generalized Turán number ${\rm ex}(G,H)$ is the maximum number of edges in an $H$-free subgraph of a graph $G.$ It is an important extension of the classical Turán number ${\rm ex}(n,H)$, which is the maximum number of edges in a graph with $n$ vertices that does not contain $H$ as a subgraph. In this paper, we consider the maximum number of edges in an even-cycle-free subgraph of the doubled Johnson graphs $J(n;k,k+1)$, which are bipartite subgraphs of hypercube graphs. We give an upper bound for ${\rm ex}(J(n;k,k+1),C_{2r})$ with any fixed $k\in\mathbb{Z}^+$ and any $n\in\mathbb{Z}^+$ wi…
In this note, we show that for any $m \in \{1,2, \dots , q +1 \}$, if $G$ is a polarity graph of a projective plane of order $q$ that has an oval, then $G$ contains a subgraph on $m + \binom{m}{2}$ vertices with $m^2+\frac{m^4}{8q} - O ( \frac{m^4}{q^{3/2} } +m )$ edges. As an application, we give the best known lower bounds on the Turán number $\mathrm{ex}(n, C_4)$ for certain values of $n$. In particular, we disprove a conjecture of Abreu, Balbuena, and Labbate concerning $\mathrm{ex}(q^2-q-2, C_4)$ where $q$ is a power of $2$.
A graph is $1$-planar if it has a drawing in the plane such that each edge is crossed at most once by another edge. Moreover, if this drawing has the additional property that for each crossing of two edges the end vertices of these edges induce a complete subgraph, then the graph is locally maximal $1$-planar. For a $3$-connected locally maximal $1$-planar graph $G$, we show the existence of a spanning $3$-connected planar subgraph and prove that $G$ is hamiltonian if $G$ has at most three $3$-vertex-cuts, and that $G$ is traceable if $G$ has at most four $3$-vertex-cuts. Moreover, infinitely …
Let $\mathcal{H}$ be a given finite (possibly empty) family of connected graphs, each containing a cycle, and let $G$ be an arbitrary finite $\mathcal{H}$-free graph with minimum degree at least $k$. For $p \in [0,1]$, we form a $p$-random subgraph $G_p$ of $G$ by independently keeping each edge of $G$ with probability $p$. Extending a classical result of Ajtai, Komlós, and Szemerédi, we prove that for every positive $\varepsilon$, there exists a positive $δ$ (depending only on $\varepsilon$) such that the following holds: If $p \ge \frac{1+\varepsilon}{k}$, then with probability tending to $1…
Let $Q_n$ denote the graph of the $n$-dimensional cube with vertex set $\{0,1\}^n$ in which two vertices are adjacent if they differ in exactly one coordinate. Suppose $G$ is a subgraph of $Q_n$ with average degree at least $d$. How long a path can we guarantee to find in $G$? Our aim in this paper is to show that $G$ must contain an exponentially long path. In fact, we show that if $G$ has minimum degree at least $d$ then $G$ must contain a path of length $2^d-1$. Note that this bound is tight, as shown by a $d$-dimensional subcube of $Q_n$. We also obtain the slightly stronger result that $G…
In 1974, Goodman and Hedetniemi proved that every 2-connected $(K_{1,3},K_{1,3}+e)$-free graph is hamiltonian. This result gave rise many other hamiltonicity conditions for various pairs and triples of forbidden connected subgraphs under additional connectivity conditions. In 1997, it was proved that a single forbidden connected subgraph $R$ in 2-connected graphs can create only a trivial class of hamiltonian graphs (complete graphs) with $R=P_3$. In this paper we prove that a single forbidden subgraph $R$ can create a non trivial class of hamiltonian graphs if $R$ is disconnected: $(\ast1)$ e…
Let $G$ be an edge-colored graph with $n$ vertices. A subgraph $H$ of $G$ is called a rainbow subgraph of $G$ if the colors of each pair of the edges in $E(H)$ are distinct. We define the minimum color degree of $G$ to be the smallest number of the colors of the edges that are incident to a vertex $v$, for all $v\in V(G)$. Suppose that $G$ contains no rainbow-cycle subgraph of length four. We show that if the minimum color degree of $G$ is at least $\frac{n+3k-2}{2}$, then $G$ contains a rainbow-cycle subgraph of length at least $k$, where $k\geq 5$. Moreover, if the condition of $G$ is restri…
We answer two extremal questions about odd cycles that naturally arise in the study of sparse pseudorandom graphs. Let $Γ$ be an $(n,d,λ)$-graph, i.e., $n$-vertex, $d$-regular graphs with all nontrivial eigenvalues in the interval $[-λ,λ]$. Krivelevich, Lee, and Sudakov conjectured that, whenever $λ^{2k-1}\ll d^{2k}/n$, every subgraph $G$ of $Γ$ with $(1/2+o(1))e(Γ)$ edges contains an odd cycle $C_{2k+1}$. Aigner-Horev, Hàn, and the third author proved a weaker statement by allowing an extra polylogarithmic factor in the assumption $λ^{2k-1}\ll d^{2k}/n$, but we completely remove it and hence …
Which $2$-regular subgraph $R$ of a cubic graph $G$ can be extended to a cycle double cover of $G$? We provide a condition which ensures that every $R$ satisfying this condition is part of a cycle double cover of $G$. As one consequence, we prove that every $2$-connected cubic graph which has a decomposition into a spanning tree and a $2$-regular subgraph $C$ consisting of $k$ circuits with $k\leq 3$, has a cycle double cover containing $C$.
A {\em $(d,h)$-decomposition} of a graph $G$ is an order pair $(D,H)$ such that $H$ is a subgraph of $G$ where $H$ has the maximum degree at most $h$ and $D$ is an acyclic orientation of $G-E(H)$ of maximum out-degree at most $d$. A graph $G$ is {\em $(d, h)$-decomposable} if $G$ has a $(d,h)$-decomposition. Let $G$ be a graph embeddable in a surface of nonnegative characteristic. In this paper, we prove the following results. (1) If $G$ has no chord $5$-cycles or no chord $6$-cycles or no chord $7$-cycles and no adjacent $4$-cycles, then $G$ is $(3,1)$-decomposable, which generalizes the resu…
We prove that a tournament and its complement contain the same number of oriented Hamiltonian paths (resp. cycles) of any given type, as a generalization of Rosenfeld's result proved for antidirected paths.
We show that every sufficiently large oriented graph with minimum in- and outdegree at least (3n-4)/8 contains a Hamilton cycle. This is best possible and solves a problem of Thomassen from 1979.
For a fixed simple digraph $F$ and a given simple digraph $D$, an $F$-free $k$-coloring of $D$ is a vertex-coloring in which no induced copy of $F$ in $D$ is monochromatic. We study the complexity of deciding for fixed $F$ and $k$ whether a given simple digraph admits an $F$-free $k$-coloring. Our main focus is on the restriction of the problem to planar input digraphs, where it is only interesting to study the cases $k \in \{2,3\}$. From known results it follows that for every fixed digraph $F$ whose underlying graph is not a forest, every planar digraph $D$ admits an $F$-free $2$-coloring, a…
An oriented cycle is an orientation of a undirected cycle. We first show that for any oriented cycle $C$, there are digraphs containing no subdivision of $C$ (as a subdigraph) and arbitrarily large chromatic number. In contrast, we show that for any $C$ a cycle with two blocks, every strongly connected digraph with sufficiently large chromatic number contains a subdivision of $C$. We prove a similar result for the antidirected cycle on four vertices (in which two vertices have out-degree $2$ and two vertices have in-degree $2$).
In this short note, we prove that for β< 1/5 every graph G with n vertices and n^{2-β} edges contains a subgraph G' with at least cn^{2-2β} edges such that every pair of edges in G' lie together on a cycle of length at most 8. Moreover edges in G' which share a vertex lie together on a cycle of length at most 6. This result is best possible up to the constant factor and settles a conjecture of Duke, Erdos, and Rodl.
We use a randomised embedding method to prove that for all α>0 any sufficiently large oriented graph G with minimum in-degree and out-degree δ^+(G),δ^-(G)\geq (3/8+α)|G| contains every possible orientation of a Hamilton cycle. This confirms a conjecture of Häggkvist and Thomason.
Let $G=(V,E)$ be a finite, simple graph. We consider for each oriented graph $G_{\cal O}$ associated to an orientation ${\cal O}$ of the edges of $G$, the toric ideal $P_{G_{\cal O}}$. In this paper we study those graphs with the property that $P_{G_{\cal O}}$ is a binomial complete intersection, for all ${\cal O}$. These graphs are called $\text{CI}{\cal O}$ graphs. We prove that these graphs can be constructed recursively as clique-sums of cycles and/or complete graphs. We introduce the chorded-theta subgraphs and their transversal triangles. Also we establish that the $\text{CI}{\cal O}$ gr…
We call a graph $G$ pancyclic if it contains at least one cycle of every possible length $m$, for $3\le m\le |V(G)|$. In this paper, we define a new property called chorded pancyclicity. We explore forbidden subgraphs in claw-free graphs sufficient to imply that the graph contains at least one chorded cycle of every possible length $4, 5, \ldots, |V(G)|$. In particular, certain paths and triangles with pendant paths are forbidden.
Given a graph $Γ= (V, E)$ on $n$ vertices and $m$ edges, we define the Erdős-Rényi graph process with host $Γ$ as follows. A permutation $e_1,\dots,e_m$ of $E$ is chosen uniformly at random, and for $t\leq m$ we let $Γ_t = (V, \{e_1,\dots,e_t\})$. Suppose the minimum degree of $Γ$ is $δ(Γ) \geq (1/2 + \varepsilon)n$ for some constant $\varepsilon > 0$. Then with high probability, $Γ_t$ becomes Hamiltonian at the same moment that its minimum degree becomes at least two. Given $0\leq p\leq 1$ we let $Γ_p$ be the Erdős-Rényi subgraph of $Γ$, obtained by retaining each edge independently with prob…
We present statistics on the decompositions (with respect to a distinguished symmetric 2t-cycle) of vertices of the hypercube graph, whose negative parts are covered by two subsets of the ground set {1,...,t} of the corresponding oriented matroid.
An oriented 3-graph consists of a family of triples (3-sets), each of which is given one of its two possible cyclic orientations. A cycle in an oriented 3-graph is a positive sum of some of the triples that gives weight zero to each 2-set. Our aim in this paper is to consider the following question: how large can the girth of an oriented 3-graph (on $n$ vertices) be? We show that there exist oriented 3-graphs whose shortest cycle has length $\frac{n^2}{2}(1+o(1))$: this is asymptotically best possible. We also show that there exist 3-tournaments whose shortest cycle has length $\frac{n^2}{3}(1…
Let $G$ be any graph of minimum degree at least $k$, and let $G_p$ be the random subgraph of $G$ obtained by keeping each edge independently with probability $p$. Recently, Krivelevich, Lee and Sudakov showed that if $pk\to\infty$ then with probability tending to 1 $G_p$ contains a cycle of length at least $(1-o(1))k$. We give a much shorter proof of this result, also based on depth-first search.
A large body of research in graph theory concerns the induced subgraphs of graphs with large chromatic number, and especially which induced cycles must occur. In this paper, we unify and substantially extend results from a number of previous papers, showing that, for every positive integer k, every graph with large chromatic number contains either a large complete subgraph or induced cycles of all lengths modulo k. As an application, we prove two conjectures of Kalai and Meshulam from the 1990's connecting the chromatic number of a graph with the homology of its independence complex.
Rosenfeld in 1974 conjectured that there is an integer N > 8 such that every tournament of order n > N contains every non-directed cycle of order n. We prove that, with exactly 35 exceptions, every tournament of order n > 2 contains each non-directed cycle of order m, 2 < m < n+1.
We show that for each \ell\geq 4 every sufficiently large oriented graph G with δ^+(G), δ^-(G) \geq \lfloor |G|/3 \rfloor +1 contains an \ell-cycle. This is best possible for all those \ell\geq 4 which are not divisible by 3. Surprisingly, for some other values of \ell, an \ell-cycle is forced by a much weaker minimum degree condition. We propose and discuss a conjecture regarding the precise minimum degree which forces an \ell-cycle (with \ell \geq 4 divisible by 3) in an oriented graph. We also give an application of our results to pancyclicity and consider \ell-cycles in general digraphs.
Let $ex(Q_n, H)$ be the largest number of edges in a subgraph $G$ of a hypercube $Q_n$ such that there is no subgraph of $G$ isomorphic to $H$. We show that for any integer $k\geq 3$, $$ex(Q_n, C_{4k+2})= O(n^{\frac{5}{6} + \frac{1}{3(2k-2)}} 2^n).$$
We present statistics on the decompositions (with respect to a distinguished symmetric 2t-cycle) of vertices of the hypercube graph, whose negative parts are regarded as disjoint unions of two subsets of the ground set {1,...,t} of the corresponding oriented matroid.
The research in the present paper was motivated by the conjecture of Ryjáček that every locally connected graph is weakly pancyclic. For a connected locally connected graph $G$ of order at least $3$, our results are as follows: If $G$ is $(K_1+(K_1\cup K_2))$-free, then $G$ is weakly pancyclic. If $G$ is $(K_1+(K_1\cup K_2))$-free, then $G$ is fully cycle extendable if and only if $2δ(G)\geq n(G)$. If $G$ is $\{ K_1+K_1+\bar{K}_3,K_1+P_4\}$-free or $\{ K_1+K_1+\bar{K}_3,K_1+(K_1\cup P_3)\}$-free, then $G$ is fully cycle extendable. If $G$ is distinct from $K_1+K_1+\bar{K}_3$ and $\{ K_1+P_4,K_…
Consider the random subgraph process on a base graph $G$ on $n$ vertices: a sequence $\lbrace G_t \rbrace _{t=0} ^{|E(G)|}$ of random subgraphs of $G$ obtained by choosing an ordering of the edges of $G$ uniformly at random, and by sequentially adding edges to $G_0$, the empty graph on the vertex set of $G$, according to the chosen ordering. We show that if $G$ has one of the following properties: 1. There is a positive constant $\varepsilon > 0$ such that $δ(G) \geq \left( \frac{1}{2} + \varepsilon \right) n$; 2. There are some constants $α, β>0$ such that every two disjoint subsets $U,W$ of …
We prove a 1985 conjecture of Gyárfás that for all $k,\ell$, every graph with sufficiently large chromatic number contains either a complete subgraph with $k$ vertices or an induced cycle of length at least $\ell$.
We propose the following conjecture extending Dirac's theorem: if $G$ is a graph with $n\ge 3$ vertices and minimum degree $δ(G)\ge n/2$, then in every orientation of $G$ there is a Hamilton cycle with at least $δ(G)$ edges oriented in the same direction. We prove an approximate version of this conjecture, showing that minimum degree $n/2 + O(k)$ guarantees a Hamilton cycle with at least $(n+k)/2$ edges oriented in the same direction. We also study the analogous problem for random graphs, showing that if the edge probability $p = p(n)$ is above the Hamiltonicity threshold, then, with high prob…
In this paper we show that many snarks have shortest cycle covers of length $\frac{4}{3}m+c$ for a constant $c$, where $m$ is the number of edges in the graph, in agreement with the conjecture that all snarks have shortest cycle covers of length $\frac{4}{3}m+o(m)$. In particular we prove that graphs with perfect matching index at most 4 have cycle covers of length $\frac{4}{3}m$ and satisfy the $(1,2)$-covering conjecture of Zhang, and that graphs with large circumference have cycle covers of length close to $\frac{4}{3}m$. We also prove some results for graphs with low oddness and discuss th…
For an oriented graph $G$, let $f(G)$ denote the maximum chromatic number of an acyclic subgraph of $G$. Let $f(n)$ be the smallest integer such that every oriented graph $G$ with chromatic number larger than $f(n)$ has $f(G) > n$. Let $g(n)$ be the smallest integer such that every tournament $G$ with more than $g(n)$ vertices has $f(G) > n$. It is straightforward that $Ω(n) \le g(n) \le f(n) \le n^2$. This paper provides the first nontrivial lower and upper bounds for $g(n)$. In particular, it is proved that $\frac{1}{4}n^{8/7} \le g(n) \le n^2-(2-\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}})n+2$. It is also shown tha…
We show that a cubic graph $G$ of order $n$ has an induced $2$-regular subgraph of order at least a) $\frac{n-2}{4-\frac{4}{k}}$, if $G$ has no induced cycle of length more than $k$, b) $\frac{5n+6}{8}$, if $G$ has no induced cycle of length more than $4$, and $n>6$, and c) $\left(\frac{1}{4}+ε\right)n$, if the independence number of $G$ is at most $\left(\frac{3}{8}-ε\right)n$. To show the second result we give a precise structural description of cubic $4$-chordal graphs.
A hole in a graph is an induced subgraph which is a cycle of length at least four. We prove that for every positive integer k, every triangle-free graph with sufficiently large chromatic number contains holes of k consecutive lengths.
We show that for each α>0 every sufficiently large oriented graph G with δ^+(G),δ^-(G)\ge 3|G|/8+ α|G| contains a Hamilton cycle. This gives an approximate solution to a problem of Thomassen. In fact, we prove the stronger result that G is still Hamiltonian if δ(G)+δ^+(G)+δ^-(G)\geq 3|G|/2 + α|G|. Up to the term α|G| this confirms a conjecture of Häggkvist. We also prove an Ore-type theorem for oriented graphs.
Motivated by his work on the classification of countable homogeneous oriented graphs, Cherlin asked about the typical structure of oriented graphs (i) without a transitive triangle, or (ii) without an oriented triangle. We give an answer to these questions (which is not quite the predicted one). Our approach is based on the recent `hypergraph containers' method, developed independently by Saxton and Thomason as well as by Balogh, Morris and Samotij. Moreover, our results generalise to forbidden transitive tournaments and forbidden oriented cycles of any order, and also apply to digraphs. Along…