Given an equation, the integers $[n] = \{1, 2, \dots, n\}$ as inputs, and the colors red and blue, how can we color $[n]$ in order to minimize the number of monochromatic solutions to the equation, and what is the minimum? The answer is only known for a handful of equations, but much progress has been made on improving upper and lower bounds on minima for various equations. A well-studied characteristic an equation, which has its roots in graph Ramsey theory, is to determine if the minimum number of monochromatic solutions can be achieved (asymptotically) by uniformly random colorings. Such equations are called common. We prove that no 3-term equations are common and provide a lower bound for a specific class of 3-term equations.
We present a recursive formula for the number of ways to color $j$ vertices blue in an r-uniform hyperpath of size $n$ while avoiding a blue monochromatic sub-hyperpath of length k. We use this result to solve the corresponding problem for $(r-1)$-tight r-uniform paths and loose r-uniform cycles. This generalizes some well known results from reliability engineering and analysis.
For $S$ a set of positive integers, and $k$ and $r$ fixed positive integers, denote by $f(S,k;r)$ the least positive integer $n$ (if it exists) such that within every $r$-coloring of $\{1,2,...,n\}$ there must be a monochromatic sequence $\{x_{1},x_{2},...,x_{k}\}$ with $x_{i}-x_{i-1} \in S$ for $2 \leq i \leq k$. We consider the existence of $f(S,k;r)$ for various choices of $S$, as well as upper and lower bounds on this function. In particular, we show that this function exists for all $k$ if $S$ is an odd translate of the set of primes and $r=2$.
We study the mixed Ramsey number maxR(n,K_m,K_r), defined as the maximum number of colours in an edge-colouring of the complete graph K_n, such that K_n has no monochromatic complete subgraph on m vertices and no rainbow complete subgraph on r vertices. Improving an upper bound of Axenovich and Iverson, we show that maxR(n,K_m,K_4) <= n^{3/2}\sqrt{2m} for all m >= 3. Further, we discuss a possible way to improve their lower bound on maxR(n,K_4,K_4) based on incidence graphs of finite projective planes.
We study a conjecture linking ultimate periodicity of infnite words to the existence of colorings on finite words avoiding monochromatic factorisation of suffixes, with the extra condition that the ordered concatenation of elements of this factorisation remains monochromatic. This type of results shows the limits of Ramsey theory in the context of combinatorics on words. We show some reductions of the problem and the example of the Zimin word. Using the new notion of consecutive length, we show that words avoiding large squares fulfill the conjecture.
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…
Ramsey Theory deals with avoiding certain patterns. When constructing an instance that avoids one pattern, it is observed that other patterns emerge. For example, repetition emerges when avoiding arithmetic progression (Van der Waerden numbers), while reflection emerges when avoiding monochromatic solutions of $a+b=c$ (Schur numbers). We exploit observed patterns when coloring a grid while avoiding monochromatic rectangles. Like many problems in Ramsey Theory, this problem has a rapidly growing search space that makes computer search difficult. Steinbach et al. obtained a solution of an 18 by …
We find families of graphs $G$ and subgraphs $H$ of $G$ such that the number of edge colorings of $G$ avoiding a monochromatic coloring of $H$ is determined by lattice point counts or a Hodge structure on the cohomology of a certain toric variety. In general, this gives a class of ``anti-Ramsey theory problems'' with a geometric structure. For example, we find one for Ramsey numbers of classes of such graphs. The key observation is that our previous result expressing simplicial chromatic polynomials in terms of $h$-vectors of auxiliary simplicial complexes can be reinterpreted as one on edge c…
We show that $\sqrt{k}\cdot r^{k/2}$ is a threshold interval length where, under mild conditions, almost every $r$-coloring of an interval of longer length contains a monochromatic $k$-term arithmetic progression, while almost no $r$-coloring of an interval of shorter length contains a monochromatic $k$-term arithmetic progression.
One of the toughest problems in Ramsey theory is to determine the existence of monochromatic arithmetic progressions in groups whose elements have been colored. We study the harder problem to not only determine the existence of monochromatic arithmetic progressions, but to also count them. We reformulate the enumeration in real algebraic geometry and then use state of the art computational methods in semidefinite programming and representation theory to derive sharp, or an explicit constant from sharp, lower bounds for the cyclic group of any order.
There are many extremely challenging problems about existence of monochromatic arithmetic progressions in colorings of groups. Many theorems hold only for abelian groups as results on non-abelian groups are often much more difficult to obtain. In this research project we do not only determine existence, but study the more general problem of counting them. We formulate the enumeration problem as a problem in real algebraic geometry and then use state of the art computational methods in semidefinite programming and representation theory to derive lower bounds for the number of monochromatic arit…
We prove a known 2-coloring of the integers $[N] := \{1,2,3,\ldots,N\}$ minimizes the number of monochromatic arithmetic 3-progressions under certain restrictions. A monochromatic arithmetic progression is a set of equally-spaced integers that are all the same color. Previous work by Parrilo, Robertson and Saracino conjectured an optimal coloring for large $N$ that involves 12 colored blocks. Here, we prove that the conjecture is optimal among anti-symmetric colorings with 12 or fewer colored blocks. We leverage a connection to the coloring of the continuous interval $[0,1]$ used by Parrilo, R…
This paper is motivated by a recent result of Wolf \cite{wolf} on the minimum number of monochromatic 4-term arithmetic progressions(4-APs, for short) in $\Z_p$, where $p$ is a prime number. Wolf proved that there is a 2-coloring of $\Z_p$ with 0.000386% fewer monochromatic 4-APs than random 2-colorings; the proof is probabilistic and non-constructive. In this paper, we present an explicit and simple construction of a 2-coloring with 9.3% fewer monochromatic 4-APs than random 2-colorings. This problem leads us to consider the minimum number of monochromatic 4-APs in $\Z_n$ for general $n$. We …
Let $G$ be a $2$-coloring of a complete graph on $n$ vertices, for sufficiently large $n$. We prove that $G$ contains at least $n^{(\frac{1}{4} - o(1))\log n}$ monochromatic complete subgraphs of size $r$, where \[ 0.3\log n < r < 0.7\log n. \] The previously known lower bound on the total number of monochromatic complete subgraphs, due to Székely was $n^{0.1576\log n}$. We also prove that $G$ contains at least $n^{\frac{1}{7} \log n} $ monochromatic complete subgraphs of size $\frac{1}{2}\log n$. If furthermore one assumes that the largest monochromatic complete subgraph in $G$ is of size $(\…
Let V(n) be the minimum number of monochromatic 3-term arithmetic progressions in any 2-coloring of {1,2,...,n}. We show that (1675/32768) n^2 (1+o(1)) <= V(n) <= (117/2192) n^2(1+o(1)). As a consequence, we find that V(n) is strictly greater than the corresponding number for Schur triples (which is (1/22) n^2 (1+o(1)). Additionally, we disprove the conjecture that V(n) = (1/16) n^2(1+o(1)), as well as a more general conjecture.
Let N^{+}(k)= 2^{k/2} k^{3/2} f(k) and N^{-}(k)= 2^{k/2} k^{1/2} g(k) where 1=o(f(k)) and g(k)=o(1). We show that the probability of a random 2-coloring of {1,2,...,N^{+}(k)} containing a monochromatic k-term arithmetic progression approaches 1, and the probability of a random 2-coloring of {1,2,...,N^{-}(k)} containing a monochromatic k-term arithmetic progression approaches 0, for large k. This improves an upper bound due to Brown, who had established an analogous result for N^{+}(k)= 2^k log k f(k).
A coloured version of classic extremal problems dates back to Erdős and Rothschild, who in 1974 asked which $n$-vertex graph has the maximum number of 2-edge-colourings without monochromatic triangles. They conjectured that the answer is simply given by the largest triangle-free graph. Since then, this new class of coloured extremal problems has been extensively studied by various researchers. In this paper we pursue the Erdős--Rothschild versions of Sperner's Theorem, the classic result in extremal set theory on the size of the largest antichain in the Boolean lattice, and Erdős' extension to…
We improve the lower bound on the number of permutations of {1,2,...,n} in which no 3-term arithmetic progression occurs as a subsequence, and derive lower bounds on the upper and lower densities of subsets of the positive integers that can be permuted to avoid 3-term and 4-term APs. We also show that any permutation of the positive integers must contain a 3-term AP with odd common difference as a subsequence, and construct a permutation of the positive integers that does not contain any 4-term AP with odd common difference.
We use combinatorial and generating function techniques to enumerate various sets of involutions which avoid 231 or contain 231 exactly once. Interestingly, many of these enumerations can be given in terms of $k$-generalized Fibonacci numbers.
We give an improved algorithm for counting the number of $1324$-avoiding permutations, resulting in $14$ further terms of the generating function, which is now known for all patterns of length $\le 50$. We re-analyse the generating function and find additional evidence for our earlier conclusion that unlike other classical length-$4$ pattern-avoiding permutations, the generating function does not have a simple power-law singularity, but rather, the number of $1324$-avoiding permutations of length $n$ behaves as \[ B\cdot μ^n \cdot μ_1^{\sqrt{n}} \cdot n^g. \] We estimate $μ=11.600 \pm 0.003$, …
Let $\mathbf{k} := (k_1,\dots,k_s)$ be a sequence of natural numbers. For a graph $G$, let $F(G;\mathbf{k})$ denote the number of colourings of the edges of $G$ with colours $1,\dots,s$ such that, for every $c \in \{1,\dots,s\}$, the edges of colour $c$ contain no clique of order $k_c$. Write $F(n;\mathbf{k})$ to denote the maximum of $F(G;\mathbf{k})$ over all graphs $G$ on $n$ vertices. This problem was first considered by Erdős and Rothschild in 1974, but it has been solved only for a very small number of non-trivial cases. We prove that, for every $\mathbf{k}$ and $n$, there is a complete …
We use the Robinson-Schensted correspondence, followed by symbol-crunching, in order to derive explicit expressions for the quantities mentioned in the title. We follow it by number crunching, in order to compute the first terms of these sequences. As an encore, we cleverly implement Ira Gessel's celebrated determinant formula for the generating functions of these sequences, to crank out many terms. This modest tribute is dedicated to one of the greatest enumerators alive today (and definitely the most modest one!), Ira Martin Gessel, who is turning 64 years-old today
We show that matchings avoiding certain partial patterns are counted by the 3-Catalan numbers. We give a characterization of 12312-avoiding matchings in terms of restrictions on the corresponding oscillating tableaux. We also find a bijection between Schröder paths without peaks at level one and matchings avoiding both patterns 12312 and 121323. Such objects are counted by the super-Catalan numbers or the little Schröder numbers. A refinement of the super-Catalan numbers is obtained by fixing the number of crossings in the matchings. In the sense of Wilf-equivalence, we find that the patterns …
Catalan structures arising from pattern-avoiding Stoimenow matchings and other Fishburn objects
College of Mathematical Sciences & Institute of Mathematics and Interdisciplinary Sciences, Tianjin Normal University（天津师范大学数学科学学院与数学及交叉科学研究所）；Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Strathclyde（斯特拉斯克莱德大学数学与统计系）
Let $T(K_{1, r}, G_n)$ be the number of monochromatic copies of the $r$-star $K_{1, r}$ in a uniformly random coloring of the vertices of the graph $G_n$. In this paper we provide a complete characterization of the limiting distribution of $T(K_{1, r}, G_n)$, in the regime where $\mathbb E(T(K_{1, r}, G_n))$ is bounded, for any growing sequence of graphs $G_n$. The asymptotic distribution is a sum of mutually independent components, each term of which is a polynomial of a single Poisson random variable of degree at most $r$. Conversely, any limiting distribution of $T(K_{1, r}, G_n)$ has a rep…
In 1990 West conjectured that there are $2(3n)!/((n+1)!(2n+1)!)$ two-stack sortable permutations on $n$ letters. This conjecture was proved analytically by Zeilberger in 1992. Later, Dulucq, Gire, and Guibert gave a combinatorial proof of this conjecture. In the present paper we study generating functions for the number of two-stack sortable permutations on $n$ letters avoiding (or containing exactly once) 132 and avoiding (or containing exactly once) an arbitrary permutation $τ$ on $k$ letters. In several interesting cases this generating function can be expressed in terms of the generating f…
For a graph $G = (V(G), E(G))$, let $i(G)$ be the number of isolated vertices in $G$. The {\it isolated toughness} of $G$ is defined as $I(G) = min\{|S|/i(G-S) : S\subseteq V(G), i(G-S)\geq 2\}$ if $G$ is not complete; $I(G)=|V(G)|-1$ otherwise. In this paper, several sufficient conditions in terms of isolated toughness are obtained for the existence of $[a, b]$-factors avoiding given subgraphs, e.g., a set of vertices, a set of edges and a matching, respectively.
It is natural to ask, given a permutation with no three-term ascending subsequence, at what index the first ascent occurs. We shall show, using both a recursion and a bijection, that the number of 123-avoiding permutations at which the first ascent occurs at positions $k,k+1$ is given by the $k$-fold Catalan convolution $C_{n,k}$. For $1\le k\le n$, $C_{n,k}$ is also seen to enumerate the number of 123-avoiding permutations with $n$ being in the $k$th position. Two interesting discrete probability distributions, related obliquely to the Poisson and geometric random variables, are derived as a …
In this paper, we find an explicit formulas, or recurrences, in terms of generating functions for the cardinalities of the sets $S_n(T;τ)$ of all permutations in $S_n$ that contain $τ\in S_k$ exactly once and avoid a subset $T\subseteq S_3$, $|T|\geq2$. The main body of the paper is divided into three sections corresponding to the cases $|T|=2,3$ and $|T|\geq4$.
We show that sets avoiding 6-term arithmetic progressions in $\mathbb{Z}_6^n$ have size at most $5.709^n$. It is also pointed out that the "product construction" does not work in this setting, specially, we show that for the extremal sizes in small dimensions we have $r_6(\mathbb{Z}_6)=5$, $r_6(\mathbb{Z}_6^2)=25$ and $ 116\leq r_6(\mathbb{Z}_6^3)\leq 124$.
We call the minimum order of any complete graph so that for any coloring of the edges by $k$ colors it is impossible to avoid a monochromatic or rainbow triangle, a Mixed Ramsey number. For any graph $H$ with edges colored from the above set of $k$ colors, if we consider the condition of excluding $H$ in the above definition, we produce a \emph{Mixed Pattern Ramsey number}, denoted $M_k(H)$. We determine this function in terms of $k$ for all colored $4$-cycles and all colored $4$-cliques. We also find bounds for $M_k(H)$ when $H$ is a monochromatic odd cycles, or a star for sufficiently large …
We provide an upper bound of the size of a subset A of F_p^n that does not admit a k-star of 3-APs (three-term arithmetic progressions). Namely, the subset A is assumed to contain no configuration of k 3-APs, sharing the middle term, such that all 2k+1 terms are distinct. In the proof, we adapt a new method in the recent work of Sauermann.
Given a matroid together with a coloring of its ground set, a subset of its elements is called rainbow colored if no two of its elements have the same color. We show that if a binary matroid of rank $r$ is colored with exactly $r$ colors, then $M$ either contains a rainbow colored circuit or a monochromatic cut. As the class of binary matroids is closed under taking duals, this immediately implies that if $M$ is colored with exactly $n-r$ colors, then $M$ either contains a rainbow colored cut or a monochromatic circuit. As a byproduct, we give a characterization of binary matroids in terms of …
Valid hook configurations are combinatorial objects used to understand West's stack sorting map as well as cumulants in noncommutative probability theory. We show a bijection between reduced valid hook configurations on 312-avoiding permutations with the maximal allowed number of points and 3D-Dyck words, proving a conjecture of Sankar's. We extend to a bijection between all 312-avoiding reduced valid hook configurations and 3D-Dyck words with specified modifications. We show how these can be counted in terms of the number of 3D-Dyck words of length 3k in which exactly i Y's do not have an X i…
A graph H is common if the number of monochromatic copies of H in a 2-edge-coloring of the complete graph is asymptotically minimized by the random coloring. The classification of common graphs is one of the most intriguing problems in extremal graph theory. We study the notion of weakly locally common graphs considered by Csóka, Hubai and Lovász [arXiv:1912.02926], where the graph is required to be the minimizer with respect to perturbations of the random 2-edge-coloring. We give a complete analysis of the 12 initial terms in the Taylor series determining the number of monochromatic copies of…
Given a graph sequence $\{G_n\}_{n \geq 1}$ denote by $T_3(G_n)$ the number of monochromatic triangles in a uniformly random coloring of the vertices of $G_n$ with $c \geq 2$ colors. This arises as a generalization of the birthday paradox, where $G_n$ corresponds to a friendship network and $T_3(G_n)$ counts the number of triples of friends with matching birthdays. In this paper we prove a central limit theorem (CLT) for $T_3(G_n)$ with explicit error rates. The proof involves constructing a martingale difference sequence by carefully ordering the vertices of $G_n$, based on a certain combinat…
We prove that $|Av_n(231,312,1432)|$, $|Av_n(312,321,1342)|$ $|Av_n(231,312,4321,21543)|$, and $ |Av_n(321,231,4123,21534)|$, are all equal to $F_{n+1} - 1$ where $F_n$ is the $n$-th Fibonacci number using the convention $F_0 = F_1 = 1$ and $Av_n(S)$ is the set of all permutations of length $n$ that avoid all of the patterns in the set $S$. To do this, we characterize the structures of the permutations in these sets in terms of Fibonacci permutations. Then, we further quantify the structures using statistics such as inversion number and a statistic that measures the length of Fibonacci subsequ…
An edge-colored connected graph $G$ is properly connected if between every pair of distinct vertices, there exists a path that no two adjacent edges have a same color. Fujita (2019) introduced the optimal proper connection number ${\mathrm{pc}_{\mathrm{opt}}}(G)$ for a monochromatic connected graph $G$, to make a connected graph properly connected efficiently. More precisely, ${\mathrm{pc}_{\mathrm{opt}}}(G)$ is the smallest integer $p+q$ when one converts a given monochromatic graph $G$ into a properly connected graph by recoloring $p$ edges with $q$ colors. In this paper, we show that ${\mat…
We consider the problem of coloring $[n]={1,2,...,n}$ with $r$ colors to minimize the number of monochromatic $k$ term arithmetic progressions (or $k$-APs for short). We show how to extend colorings of $\mathbb{Z}_m$ which avoid nontrivial $k$-APs to colorings of $[n]$ by an unrolling process. In particular, by using residues to color $\mathbb{Z}_m$ we produce the best known colorings for minimizing the number of monochromatic $k$-APs for coloring with $r$ colors for several small values of $r$ and $k$.
Pach and Palincza proved the following generalization of Ellenberg and Gijswijt's bound for the size of $k$-term arithmetic progression-free subsets, where $k\in \{4,5,6\}$: Let $m>0$ be an integer such that $6$ divides $m$ and let $k\in \{4,5,6\}$. Then $$ r_k({\mathbb Z}_{m}^n)\leq (0.948m)^n $$ if $n$ is sufficiently large. Building on the proof technique of Pach and Palincza's upper bound we generalize the Ellenberg and Gijswijt's bound in the following way: Let $p>2$ be any integer and let $q>2$ be a prime. Suppose that $p\leq q$. Then the there exists an $n_0\in \mathbb N$ integer and a …
For a finite abelian group $G$, the Erdős-Ginzburg-Ziv constant $\mathfrak{s}(G)$ is the smallest $s$ such that every sequence of $s$ (not necessarily distinct) elements of $G$ has a zero-sum subsequence of length $\operatorname{exp}(G)$. For a prime $p$, let $r(\mathbb{F}_p^n)$ denote the size of the largest subset of $\mathbb{F}_p^n$ without a three-term arithmetic progression. Although similar methods have been used to study $\mathfrak{s}(G)$ and $r(\mathbb{F}_p^n)$, no direct connection between these quantities has previously been established. We give an upper bound for $\mathfrak{s}(G)$ i…
The Zarankiewicz number $z(m,n;s,t)$ is the maximum number of edges in a subgraph of $K_{m,n}$ that does not contain $K_{s,t}$ as a subgraph. The bipartite Ramsey number $b(n_1, \cdots, n_k)$ is the least positive integer $b$ such that any coloring of the edges of $K_{b,b}$ with $k$ colors will result in a monochromatic copy of $K_{n_i,n_i}$ in the $i$-th color, for some $i$, $1 \le i \le k$. If $n_i=m$ for all $i$, then we denote this number by $b_k(m)$. In this paper we obtain the exact values of some Zarankiewicz numbers for quadrilateral ($s=t=2$), and we derive new bounds for diagonal mul…
