Given a coloring of the edges of the complete graph on n vertices in k colors, by considering the neighbors of an arbitrary vertex it follows that there is a monochromatic diameter two subgraph on at least 1+(n-1)/k vertices. We show that for $k \ge 3$ this is asymptotically best possible, and that for k=2 there is always a monochromatic diameter two subgraph on at least $\lceil {3 \over 4} n \rceil$ vertices, which again, is best possible.
This paper investigates vertex colorings of graphs such that some rainbow subgraph~$R$ and some monochromatic subgraph $M$ are forbidden. Previous work focussed on the case that $R=M$. Here we consider the more general case, especially the case that $M=K_2$.
We investigate the distributions of the number of: (1) monochromatic complete subgraphs over edgewise 2-colorings of complete graphs; and (2) monochromatic arithmetic progressions over 2-colorings of intervals, as statistical Ramsey theory questions. We present convincing evidence that both distributions are very well-approximated by the Delaporte distribution.
A well-known result by Haxell and Kohayakawa states that the vertices of an $r$-coloured complete graph can be partitioned into $r$ monochromatic connected subgraphs of distinct colours; this is a slightly weaker variant of a conjecture by Erdős, Pyber and Gyárfás that states that there exists a partition into $r-1$ monochromatic connected subgraphs. We consider a variant of this problem, where the complete graph is replaced by a graph with large minimum degree, and prove two conjectures of Bal and DeBiasio, for two and three colours.
We consider the following question of Bollobas: given an r-colouring of the edges of the complete graph on n vertices, how large a k-connected subgraph can we find using only one colour? We solve this problem asymptotically when r-1 is a prime power, and exactly for 2- and 3-colourings.
Let $K_n$ be the complete graph with $n$ vertices and $c_1, c_2, ..., c_r$ be $r$ different colors. Suppose we randomly and uniformly color the edges of $K_n$ in $c_1, c_2, ..., c_r$. Then we get a random graph, denoted by $\mathcal{K}_n^r$. In the paper, we investigate the asymptotic properties of several kinds of monochromatic and heterochromatic subgraphs in $\mathcal{K}_n^r$. Accurate threshold functions in some cases are also obtained.
Gyárfás conjectured in 2011 that every $r$-edge-colored $K_n$ contains a monochromatic component of bounded ("perhaps three") diameter on at least $n/(r-1)$ vertices. Letzter proved this conjecture with diameter four. In this note we improve the result in the case of $r=3$: We show that in every $3$-edge-coloring of $K_n$ either there is a monochromatic component of diameter at most three on at least $n/2$ vertices or every color class is spanning and has diameter at most four.
Let ${\cal{F}}=\{F_1,F_2,\ldots\}$ be a sequence of graphs such that $F_n$ is a graph on $n$ vertices with maximum degree at most $Δ$. We show that there exists an absolute constant $C$ such that the vertices of any 2-edge-colored complete graph can be partitioned into at most $2^{CΔ\logΔ}$ vertex disjoint monochromatic copies of graphs from ${\cal{F}}$. If each $F_n$ is bipartite, then we can improve this bound to $2^{C Δ}$; this result is optimal up to the constant $C$.
Let $G$ be a graph. For a given positive integer $d$, let $f_G(d)$ denote the largest integer $t$ such that in every coloring of the edges of $G$ with two colors there is a monochromatic subgraph with minimum degree at least $d$ and order at least $t$. For $n > k > d$ let $f(n,k,d)$ denote the minimum of $f_G(d)$ where $G$ ranges over all graphs with $n$ vertices and minimum degree at least $k$. In this paper we establish $f(n,k,d)$ whenever $k$ or $n-k$ are fixed, and $n$ is sufficiently large. We also consider the case where more than two colors are allowed.
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 $K_{\mathbb{N}}$ be the complete symmetric digraph on the positive integers. Answering a question of DeBiasio and McKenney, we construct a $2$-colouring of the edges of $K_{\mathbb{N}}$ in which every monochromatic path has density~$0$. However, if we restrict the length of monochromatic paths in one colour, then no example as above can exist: We show that every $(r+1)$-edge-coloured complete symmetric digraph (of arbitrary infinite cardinality) containing no directed paths of edge-length $\ell_i$ for any colour $i\leq r$ can be covered by $\prod_{i\leq r} \ell_i$ pairwise disjoint monochr…
Let $n, k, m$ be positive integers with $n\gg m\gg k$, and let $\mathcal{A}$ be the set of graphs $G$ of order at least 3 such that there is a $k$-connected monochromatic subgraph of order at least $n-f(G,k,m)$ in any rainbow $G$-free coloring of $K_n$ using all the $m$ colors. In this paper, we prove that the set $\mathcal{A}$ consists of precisely $P_6$, $P_3\cup P_4$, $K_2\cup P_5$, $K_2\cup 2P_3$, $2K_2\cup K_3$, $2K_2\cup P^{+}_4$, $3K_2\cup K_{1,3}$ and their subgraphs of order at least 3. Moreover, we show that for any graph $H\in \mathcal{A}$, if $n$ sufficiently larger than $m$ and $k…
Let the diameter cover number, $D^t_r(G)$, denote the least integer $d$ such that under any $r$-coloring of the edges of the graph $G$, there exists a collection of $t$ monochromatic subgraphs of diameter at most $d$ such that every vertex of $G$ is contained in at least one of the subgraphs. We explore the diameter cover number with two colors and two subgraphs when $G$ is a complete multipartite graph with at least three parts. We determine exactly the value of $D_2^2(G)$ for all complete tripartite graphs $G$, and almost all complete multipartite graphs with more than three parts.
For integers $n\ge 0$, an iterated triangulation $Tr(n)$ is defined recursively as follows: $Tr(0)$ is the plane triangulation on three vertices and, for $n\ge 1$, $Tr(n)$ is the plane triangulation obtained from the plane triangulation $Tr(n-1)$ by, for each inner face $F$ of $Tr(n-1)$, adding inside $F$ a new vertex and three edges joining this new vertex to the three vertices incident with $F$. In this paper, we show that there exists a 2-edge-coloring of $Tr(n)$ such that $Tr(n)$ contains no monochromatic copy of the cycle $C_k$ for any $k\ge 5$. As a consequence, the answer to one of two …
Let k, r, s in the natural numbers where r \geq s \geq 2. Define f(s,r,k) to be the smallest positive integer n such that for every coloring of the integers in [1,n] there exist subsets S_1 and S_2 such that: (a) S_1 and S_2 are monochromatic (but not necessarily of the same color), (b) |S_1| = s, |S_2| = r, (c)max(S_1) < min(S_2), and (d) diam(S_1) \leq diam(S_2). We prove that the theorems defining f(s,r,2) and f(s,r,3) admit a partial generalization in the sense of the Erdos-Ginzburg-Ziv theorem. This work begins the off-diagonal case of the results of Bialostocki, Erdos, and Lefmann.
For any countably infinite graph $G$, Ramsey's theorem guarantees an infinite monochromatic copy of $G$ in any $r$-coloring of the edges of the countably infinite complete graph $K_\mathbb{N}$. Taking this a step further, it is natural to wonder how "large" of a monochromatic copy of $G$ we can find with respect to some measure -- for instance, the density (or upper density) of the vertex set of $G$ in the positive integers. Unlike finite Ramsey theory, where this question has been studied extensively, the analogous problem for infinite graphs has been mostly overlooked. In one of the few resu…
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.
The Maximum Degree and Diameter Bounded Subgraph Problem (MaxDDBS) asks: given a host graph G, a bound on maximum degree Δ, and a diameter D, what is the largest subgraph of the host graph with degree bounded by Δand diameter bounded by D? In this paper, we investigate this problem when the host graph is the k-dimensional mesh. We provide lower bounds for the size of the largest subgraph of the mesh satisfying MaxDDBS for all k and Δ> 3 that agree with the known upper bounds up to the first two terms, and show that for Δ= 3, the lower bounds are at least the same order of growth as the upper b…
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…
Let $T(H, G_n)$ be the number of monochromatic copies of a fixed connected graph $H$ in a uniformly random coloring of the vertices of the graph $G_n$. In this paper we give a complete characterization of the limiting distribution of $T(H, G_n)$, when $\{G_n\}_{n \geq 1}$ is a converging sequence of dense graphs. When the number of colors grows to infinity, depending on whether the expected value remains bounded, $T(H, G_n)$ either converges to a finite linear combination of independent Poisson variables or a normal distribution. On the other hand, when the number of colors is fixed, $T(H, G_n…
A $k$-bisection of a bridgeless cubic graph $G$ is a $2$-colouring of its vertex set such that the colour classes have the same cardinality and all connected components in the two subgraphs induced by the colour classes (monochromatic components in what follows) have order at most $k$. Ban and Linial conjectured that every bridgeless cubic graph admits a $2$-bisection except for the Petersen graph. A similar problem for the edge set of cubic graphs has been studied: Wormald conjectured that every cubic graph $G$ with $|E(G)| \equiv 0 \pmod 2$ has a $2$-edge colouring such that the two monochro…
We denote by $\text{ex}(n, H, F)$ the maximum number of copies of $H$ in an $n$-vertex graph that does not contain $F$ as a subgraph. Recently, Grzesik, Győri, Salia, Tompkins considered conditions on $H$ under which $\text{ex}(n, H, K_r)$ is asymptotically attained at a blow-up of $K_{r-1}$, and proposed a conjecture. In this note we disprove their conjecture.
Given a $k$-colouring of the edges of the complete graph $K_n$, are there $k-1$ monochromatic components that cover its vertices? This important special case of the well-known Lovász-Ryser conjecture is still open. In this paper we consider a strengthening of this question, where we insist that the covering sets are not merely connected but have bounded diameter. In particular, we prove that for any colouring of $E(K_n)$ with 4 colours, there is a choice of sets $A_1, A_2, A_3$ that cover all vertices, and colours $c_1, c_2, c_3$, such that for each $i = 1,2,3$ the monochromatic subgraph induc…
We give a bound on the spectral radius of subgraphs of regular graphs with given order and diameter. We give a lower bound on the smallest eigenvalue of a nonbipartite regular graph of given order and diameter.
We prove that if $H$ is a subgraph of a complete multipartite graph $G$, then $H$ contains a connected component $H'$ satisfying $|E(H')||E(G)|\geq |E(H)|^2$. We use this to prove that every three-coloring of the edges of a complete graph contains a monochromatic connected subgraph with at least $1/6$ of the edges. We further show that such a coloring has a monochromatic circuit with a fraction $1/6-o(1)$ of the edges. This verifies a conjecture of Conlon and Tyomkyn. Moreover, for general $k$, we show that every $k$-coloring of the edges of $K_n$ contains a monochromatic connected subgraph wi…
We show that, for every $r, k$, there is an $n = n(r,k)$ so that any $r$-coloring of the edges of the complete graph on $[n]$ will yield a monochromatic complete subgraph on vertices ${a + \sum_{i \in I} d_i \mid I \subseteq [k]}$ for some choice of $a, d_1,..., d_k$. In particular, there is always a solution to $x_1 + ... + x_\ell = y_1 + ... + y_\ell$ whose induced subgraph is monochromatic.
We investigate decompositions of a graph into a small number of low diameter subgraphs. Let P(n,ε,d) be the smallest k such that every graph G=(V,E) on n vertices has an edge partition E=E_0 \cup E_1 \cup ... \cup E_k such that |E_0| \leq εn^2 and for all 1 \leq i \leq k the diameter of the subgraph spanned by E_i is at most d. Using Szemerédi's regularity lemma, Polcyn and Ruciński showed that P(n,ε,4) is bounded above by a constant depending only ε. This shows that every dense graph can be partitioned into a small number of ``small worlds'' provided that few edges can be ignored. Improving o…
Consider a graph $G$ drawn on a fixed surface, and assign to each vertex a list of colors of size at least two if $G$ is triangle-free and at least three otherwise. We prove that we can give each vertex a color from its list so that each monochromatic connected subgraph has bounded weak diameter (i.e., diameter measured in the metric of the whole graph $G$, not just the subgraph). In case that $G$ has bounded maximum degree, this implies that each connected monochromatic subgraph has bounded size. This solves a problem of Esperet and Joret for planar triangle-free graphs, and extends known res…
A path in an edge-colored graph $G$ is called monochromatic if any two edges on the path have the same color. For $k\geq 2$, an edge-colored graph $G$ is said to be monochromatic $k$-edge-connected if every two distinct vertices of $G$ are connected by at least $k$ edge-disjoint monochromatic paths, and $G$ is said to be uniformly monochromatic $k$-edge-connected if every two distinct vertices are connected by at least $k$ edge-disjoint monochromatic paths such that all edges of these $k$ paths colored with a same color. We use $mc_k(G)$ and $umc_k(G)$ to denote the maximum number of colors th…
Bollobás and Gyárfás conjectured that for any $k, n \in \mathbb{Z}^+$ with $n > 4(k-1)$, every 2-edge-coloring of the complete graph on $n$ vertices leads to a $k$-connected monochromatic subgraph with at least $n-2k+2$ vertices. We find a counterexample with $n = \lfloor 5k-2.5-\sqrt{8k-\frac{31}{4}} \rfloor$, thus disproving the conjecture, and we show the conclusion holds for $n > 5k-2.5-\sqrt{8k-\frac{31}{4}}$ when $k \ge 16$.
We wish to bring attention to a natural but slightly hidden problem, posed by Erdős and Nešetřil in the late 1980s, an edge version of the degree--diameter problem. Our main result is that, for any graph of maximum degree $Δ$ with more than $1.5 Δ^t$ edges, its line graph must have diameter larger than $t$. In the case where the graph contains no cycle of length $2t+1$, we can improve the bound on the number of edges to one that is exact for $t\in\{1,2,3,4,6\}$. In the case $Δ=3$ and $t=3$, we obtain an exact bound. Our results also have implications for the related problem of bounding the dis…
Consider the following random process: The vertices of a binomial random graph $G_{n,p}$ are revealed one by one, and at each step only the edges induced by the already revealed vertices are visible. Our goal is to assign to each vertex one from a fixed number $r$ of available colors immediately and irrevocably without creating a monochromatic copy of some fixed graph $F$ in the process. Our first main result is that for any $F$ and $r$, the threshold function for this problem is given by $p_0(F,r,n)=n^{-1/m_1^*(F,r)}$, where $m_1^*(F,r)$ denotes the so-called \emph{online vertex-Ramsey densit…
We prove that for any $r\in \mathbb{N}$, there exists a constant $C_r$ such that the following is true. Let $\mathcal{F}=\{F_1,F_2,\dots\}$ be an infinite sequence of bipartite graphs such that $|V(F_i)|=i$ and $Δ(F_i)\leq Δ$ hold for all $i$. Then in any $r$-edge coloured complete graph $K_n$, there is a collection of at most $\exp(C_rΔ)$ monochromatic subgraphs, each of which is isomorphic to an element of $\mathcal{F}$, whose vertex sets partition $V(K_n)$. This proves a conjecture of Corsten and Mendonça in a strong form and generalizes results on the multicolour Ramsey numbers of bounded-…
The problem of finding the largest connected subgraph of a given undirected host graph, subject to constraints on the maximum degree $Δ$ and the diameter $D$, was introduced in \cite{maxddbs}, as a generalization of the Degree-Diameter Problem. A case of special interest is when the host graph is a common parallel architecture. Here we discuss the case when the host graph is a $k$-dimensional mesh. We provide some general bounds for the order of the largest subgraph in arbitrary dimension $k$, and for the particular cases of $k=3, Δ= 4$ and $k=2, Δ= 3$, we give constructions that result in sha…
For an edge-colored graph $G$, we call an edge-cut $M$ of $G$ monochromatic if the edges of $M$ are colored with the same color. The graph $G$ is called monochromatic disconnected if any two distinct vertices of $G$ are separated by a monochromatic edge-cut. For a connected graph $G$, the monochromatic disconnection number (or $MD$-number for short) of $G$, denoted by $md(G)$, is the maximum number of colors that are allowed in order to make $G$ monochromatic disconnected. For graphs with diameter one, they are complete graphs and so their $MD$-numbers are $1$. For graphs with diameter at leas…
What is the chance that among a group of $n$ friends, there are $s$ friends all of whom have the same birthday? This is the celebrated birthday problem which can be formulated as the existence of a monochromatic $s$-clique $K_s$ ($s$-matching birthdays) in the complete graph $K_n$, where every vertex of $K_n$ is uniformly colored with $365$ colors (corresponding to birthdays). More generally, for a general connected graph $H$, let $T(H, G_n)$ be the number of monochromatic copies of $H$ in a uniformly random coloring of the vertices of the graph $G_n$ with $c_n$ colors. In this paper we show t…
The typical problem in (generalized) Ramsey theory is to find the order of the largest monochromatic member of a family F (for example matchings, paths, cycles, connected subgraphs) that must be present in any edge coloring of a complete graph K_n with t colors. Another area is to find the minimum number of monochromatic members of F that partition or cover the vertex set of every edge colored complete graph. Here we propose a problem that connects these areas: for fixed positive integers s,t, at least how many vertices can be covered by the vertices of no more than s monochromatic members of …
For a graph G and an integer t we let mcc_t(G) be the smallest m such that there exists a coloring of the vertices of G by t colors with no monochromatic connected subgraph having more than m vertices. Let F be any nontrivial minor-closed family of graphs. We show that \mcc_2(G) = O(n^{2/3}) for any n-vertex graph G \in F. This bound is asymptotically optimal and it is attained for planar graphs. More generally, for every such F and every fixed t we show that mcc_t(G)=O(n^{2/(t+1)}). On the other hand we have examples of graphs G with no K_{t+3} minor and with mcc_t(G)=Ω(n^{2/(2t-1)}). It is a…
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…
A finite set $A \subset \mathbb{R}^d$ is called $\textit{diameter-Ramsey}$ if for every $r \in \mathbb N$, there exists some $n \in \mathbb N$ and a finite set $B \subset \mathbb{R}^n$ with $\mathrm{diam}(A)=\mathrm{diam}(B)$ such that whenever $B$ is coloured with $r$ colours, there is a monochromatic set $A' \subset B$ which is congruent to $A$. We prove that sets of diameter $1$ with circumradius larger than $1/\sqrt{2}$ are not diameter-Ramsey. In particular, we obtain that triangles with an angle larger than $135^\circ$ are not diameter-Ramsey, improving a result of Frankl, Pach, Reiher a…
The conditional diameter of a connected graph $Γ=(V,E)$ is defined as follows: given a property ${\cal P}$ of a pair $(Γ_1, Γ_2)$ of subgraphs of $Γ$, the so-called \emph{conditional diameter} or ${\cal P}$-{\em diameter} measures the maximum distance among subgraphs satisfying ${\cal P}$. That is, \[ D_{\cal P}(Γ):=\max_{Γ_1, Γ_2\subset Γ} \{\partial(Γ_1, Γ_2): Γ_1, Γ_2 \quad {\rm satisfy }\quad {\cal P}\}. \] In this paper we consider the conditional diameter in which ${\cal P}$ requires that $δ(u)\ge α$ for all $ u\in V(Γ_1)$, $δ(v)\ge β$ for all $v\in V(Γ_2)$, $| V(Γ_1)| \ge s$ and $| V(Γ_…
A digraph is {\em $d$-dominating} if every set of at most $d$ vertices has a common out-neighbor. For all integers $d\geq 2$, let $f(d)$ be the smallest integer such that the vertices of every 2-edge-colored (finite or infinite) complete digraph (including loops) can be covered by the vertices of at most $f(d)$ monochromatic $d$-dominating subgraphs. Note that the existence of $f(d)$ is not obvious -- indeed, the question which motivated this paper was simply to determine whether $f(d)$ is bounded, even for $d=2$. We answer this question affirmatively for all $d\geq 2$, proving $4\leq f(2)\le …
For two graphs, $G$, and $H$, an edge-coloring of a complete graph is $(G,H)$-good if there is no monochromatic subgraph isomorphic to $G$ and no rainbow subgraph isomorphic to $H$ in this coloring. The set of number of colors used by some $(G,H)$-colorings of $K_n$ is called a mixed-Ramsey spectrum. This note addresses a fundamental question of whether the spectrum is an interval. It is shown that the answer is "yes" if $G$ is not a star and $H$ does not contain a pendent edge.
Loebl, Komlos, and Sos conjectured that if at least half the vertices of a graph G have degree at least some k, then every tree with at most k edges is a subgraph of G. We prove the conjecture for all trees of diameter at most 5 and for a class of caterpillars. Our result implies a bound on the Ramsey number r(T,F) of trees T, F from the above classes.
