Tournaments are orientations of the complete graph, and the directed Ramsey number $R(k)$ is the minimum number of vertices a tournament must have to be guaranteed to contain a transitive subtournament of size $k$, which we denote by $TT_k$. We include a computer-assisted proof of a conjecture by Sanchez-Flores that all $TT_6$-free tournaments on 24 and 25 vertices are subtournaments of $ST_{27}$, the unique largest TT_6-free tournament. We also classify all $TT_6$-free tournaments on 23 vertices. We use these results, combined with assistance from SAT technology, to obtain the following improved bounds: $34 \leq R(7) \leq 47$.
In this paper, we study Ramsey-type problems for directed graphs. We first consider the $k$-colour oriented Ramsey number of $H$, denoted by $\overrightarrow{R}(H,k)$, which is the least $n$ for which every $k$-edge-coloured tournament on $n$ vertices contains a monochromatic copy of $H$. We prove that $ \overrightarrow{R}(T,k) \le c_k|T|^k$ for any oriented tree $T$. This is a generalisation of a similar result for directed paths by Chvátal and by Gyárfás and Lehel, and answers a question of Yuster. In general, it is tight up to a constant factor. We also consider the $k$-colour directed Rams…
Given a graph $H$, the size Ramsey number $r_e(H,q)$ is the minimal number $m$ for which there is a graph $G$ with $m$ edges such that every $q$-coloring of $G$ contains a monochromatic copy of $H$. We study the size Ramsey number of the directed path of length $n$ in oriented graphs, where no antiparallel edges are allowed. We give nearly tight bounds for every fixed number of colors, showing that for every $q\geq 1 $ there are constants $c_1 = c_1(q),c_2$ such that $$\frac{c_1(q) n^{2q}(\log n)^{1/q}}{(\log\log n)^{(q+2)/q}} \leq r_e(\overrightarrow{P_n},q+1) \leq c_2 n^{2q}(\log {n})^2.$$ O…
Starting from an innocent Ramsey-theoretic question regarding directed paths in tournaments, we discover a series of rich and surprising connections that lead into the theory around a fundamental problem in Combinatorics: the Ruzsa-Szemerédi induced matching problem. Using these relationships, we prove that every coloring of the edges of the transitive $n$-vertex tournament using three colors contains a directed path of length at least $\sqrt{n} \cdot e^{\log^* n}$ which entirely avoids some color. We also expose connections to a family of constructions for Ramsey tournaments, and introduce an…
An oriented graph is a directed graph with no bi-directed edges, i.e. if $xy$ is an edge then $yx$ is not an edge. The oriented size Ramsey number of an oriented graph $H$, denoted by $r(H)$, is the minimum $m$ for which there exists an oriented graph $G$ with $m$ edges, such that every $2$-colouring of $G$ contains a monochromatic copy of $H$. In this paper we prove that the oriented size Ramsey number of the directed paths on $n$ vertices satisfies $r(P_n) = Ω(n^2 \log n)$. This improves a lower bound by Ben-Eliezer, Krivelevich and Sudakov. It also matches an upper bound by Bucić and the au…
We discuss a variant of the Ramsey and the directed Ramsey problem. First, consider a complete graph on $n$ vertices and a two-coloring of the edges such that every edge is colored with at least one color and the number of bicolored edges $|E_{RB}|$ is given. The aim is to find the maximal size $f$ of a monochromatic clique which is guaranteed by such a coloring. Analogously, in the second problem we consider semicomplete digraph on $n$ vertices such that the number of bi-oriented edges $|E_{bi}|$ is given. The aim is to bound the size $F$ of the maximal transitive subtournament that is guaran…
The book graph $B_n^{(k)}$ consists of $n$ copies of $K_{k+1}$ joined along a common $K_k$. The Ramsey numbers of $B_n^{(k)}$ are known to have strong connections to the classical Ramsey numbers of cliques. Recently, the first author determined the asymptotic order of these Ramsey numbers for fixed $k$, thus answering an old question of Erdős, Faudree, Rousseau, and Schelp. In this paper, we first provide a simpler proof of this theorem. Next, answering a question of the first author, we present a different proof that avoids the use of Szemerédi's regularity lemma, thus providing much tighter …
In 2005, Kechris, Pestov and Todorcevic provided a powerful tool to compute an invariant of topological groups known as the universal minimal flow, immediately leading to an explicit representation of this invariant in many concrete cases. More recently, the framework was generalized allowing for further applications, and the purpose of this paper is to apply these new methods in the context of homogeneous directed graphs. In this paper, we show that the age of any homogeneous directed graph allows a Ramsey precompact expansion. Moreover, we verify the relative expansion properties and consequ…
The family $D(k,m)$ of graphs having an orientation such that for every vertex $v \in V(G)$ either (outdegree) $°^+(v) \le k$ or (indegree) $°^-(v) \le m$ have been investigated recently in several papers because of the role $D(k,m)$ plays in the efforts to estimate the maximum directed cut in digraphs and the minimum cover of digraphs by directed cuts. Results concerning the chromatic number of graphs in the family $D(k,m)$ have been obtained via the notion of $d$-degeneracy of graphs. In this paper we consider a far reaching generalization of the family $D(k,m)$, in a complementary form, int…
Let $G$ be an $r$-uniform hypergraph. When is it possible to orient the edges of $G$ in such a way that every $p$-set of vertices has some $p$-degree equal to $0$? (The $p$-degrees generalise for sets of vertices what in-degree and out-degree are for single vertices in directed graphs.) Caro and Hansberg asked if the obvious Hall-type necessary condition is also sufficient. Our main aim is to show that this is true for $r$ large (for given $p$), but false in general. Our counterexample is based on a new technique in sparse Ramsey theory that may be of independent interest.
The study of problems concerning subdivisions of graphs has a rich history in extremal combinatorics. Confirming a conjecture of Burr and Erdős, Alon proved in 1994 that subdivided graphs have linear Ramsey numbers. Later, Alon, Krivelevich and Sudakov showed that every $n$-vertex graph with at least $\varepsilon n^2$ edges contains a $1$-subdivision of the complete graph on $c_{\varepsilon}\sqrt{n}$ vertices, resolving another old conjecture of Erdős. In this paper we consider the directed analogue of these problems and show that every tournament on at least $(2+o(1))k^2$ vertices contains th…
Recently, the authors gave Ramsey-type results for the path cover/partition number of graphs. In this paper, we continue the research about them focusing on digraphs, and find a relationship between the path cover/partition number and forbidden structures in digraphs. Let $D$ be a weakly connected digraph. A family $\mathcal{P}$ of subdigraphs of $D$ is called a {\it path cover} (resp. a {\it path partition}) of $D$ if $\bigcup _{P\in \mathcal{P}}V(P)=V(D)$ (resp. $\dot\bigcup _{P\in \mathcal{P}}V(P)=V(D)$) and every element of $\mathcal{P}$ is a directed path. The minimum cardinality of a pat…
Burr and Erdős in 1975 conjectured, and Chvátal, Rödl, Szemerédi and Trotter later proved, that the Ramsey number of any bounded degree graph is linear in the number of vertices. In this paper, we disprove the natural directed analogue of the Burr--Erdős conjecture, answering a question of Bucić, Letzter, and Sudakov. If $H$ is an acyclic digraph, the oriented Ramsey number of $H$, denoted $\overrightarrow{r_{1}}(H)$, is the least $N$ such that every tournament on $N$ vertices contains a copy of $H$. We show that for any $Δ\geq 2$ and any sufficiently large $n$, there exists an acyclic digraph…
Imagine that you are handed a rule for determining whether a cycle in a digraph is "good" or "bad", based on which edges of the cycle are traversed in the forward direction and which edges are traversed in the backward direction. Can you then construct a digraph which avoids having any "bad" cycles, but has arbitrarily large chromatic number? We answer this question when the rule is described in terms of a finite state machine. The proof relies on Nesetril and Rodl's structural Ramsey theory of posets with a linear extension. As an application, we give a new proof of the Loop Lemma of Barto, K…
We prove that there exists $C>0$ such that $ε(H) \geq \frac{C}{|H|^{5}\log(|H|)}$, where $ε(H)$ is the Erdős-Hajnal coefficient of the tournament $H$, for every prime tournament $H$ for which the celebrated Erdős-Hajnal Conjecture has been proven so far. This is the first polynomial bound on the EH coefficient obtained for all known prime Erdős-Hajnal tournaments, in particular for infinitely many prime tournaments. As a byproduct of our analysis, we answer affirmatively the question whether there exists an infinite family of prime tournaments $H$ with $ε(H)$ lower-bounded by $\frac{1}{\textit…
