A bound on the number of edges in graphs without an even cycle

We show that, for each fixed $k$, an $n$-vertex graph not containing a cycle of length $2k$ has at most $80\sqrt{k}\log k\cdot n^{1+1/k}+O(n)$ edges.Comment: 16 pages, v2 appeared in Comb. Probab. Comp., v3 fixes an error in v2 and explains why the method in the paper cannot improve the power of k further, v4 fixes the proof of Theorem 12 introduced in v

MaxCut in graphs with sparse neighborhoods

Let $G$ be a graph with $m$ edges and let $\mathrm{mc}(G)$ denote the size of a largest cut of $G$. The difference $\mathrm{mc}(G)-m/2$ is called the surplus $\mathrm{sp}(G)$ of $G$. A fundamental problem in MaxCut is to determine $\mathrm{sp}(G)$ for $G$ without specific structure, and the degree sequence $d_1,\ldots,d_n$ of $G$ plays a key role in getting the lower bound of $\mathrm{sp}(G)$. A classical example, given by Shearer, is that $\mathrm{sp}(G)=\Omega(\sum_{i=1}^n\sqrt d_i)$ for triangle-free graphs $G$, implying that $\mathrm{sp}(G)=\Omega(m^{3/4})$. It was extended to graphs with sparse neighborhoods by Alon, Krivelevich and Sudakov. In this paper, we establish a novel and stronger result for a more general family of graphs with sparse neighborhoods. Our result can derive many well-known bounds on $\mathrm{sp}(G)$ in $H$-free graphs $G$ for different $H$, such as the triangle, the even cycle, the graphs having a vertex whose removal makes the graph acyclic, or the complete bipartite graph $K_{s,t}$ with $s\in \{2,3\}$. It can also deduce many new (tight) bounds on $\mathrm{sp}(G)$ in $H$-free graphs $G$ when $H$ is any graph having a vertex whose removal results in a bipartite graph with relatively small Tur\'{a}n number, especially the even wheel. This contributes to a conjecture raised by Alon, Krivelevich and Sudakov. Moreover, we give a new family of graphs $H$ such that $\mathrm{sp}(G)=\Omega(m^{3/4+\epsilon(H)})$ for some constant $\epsilon(H)>0$ in $H$-free graphs $G$, giving an evidence to a conjecture suggested by Alon, Bollob\'as, Krivelevich and Sudakov

An exploration of two infinite families of snarks

Thesis (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2019In this paper, we generalize a single example of a snark that admits a drawing with even rotational symmetry into two infinite families using a voltage graph construction techniques derived from cyclic Pseudo-Loupekine snarks. We expose an enforced chirality in coloring the underlying 5-pole that generated the known example, and use this fact to show that the infinite families are in fact snarks. We explore the construction of these families in terms of the blowup construction. We show that a graph in either family with rotational symmetry of order m has automorphism group of order m2m⁺¹. The oddness of graphs in both families is determined exactly, and shown to increase linearly with the order of rotational symmetry.Chapter 1: Introduction -- 1.1 General Graph Theory -- Chapter 2: Introduction to Snarks -- 2.1 History -- 2.2 Motivation -- 2.3 Loupekine Snarks and k-poles -- 2.4 Conditions on Triviality -- Chapter 3: The Construction of Two Families of Snarks -- 3.1 Voltage Graphs and Lifts -- 3.2 The Family of Snarks, Fm -- 3.3 A Second Family of Snarks, Rm -- Chapter 4: Results -- 4.1 Proof that the graphs Fm and Rm are Snarks -- 4.2 Interpreting Fm and Rm as Blowup Graphs -- 4.3 Automorphism Group -- 4.4 Oddness -- Chapter 5: Conclusions and Open Questions -- References

Generalized Tur\'an problems for even cycles

Given a graph $H$ and a set of graphs $\mathcal F$, let $ex(n,H,\mathcal F)$ denote the maximum possible number of copies of $H$ in an $\mathcal F$-free graph on $n$ vertices. We investigate the function $ex(n,H,\mathcal F)$, when $H$ and members of $\mathcal F$ are cycles. Let $C_k$ denote the cycle of length $k$ and let $\mathscr C_k=\{C_3,C_4,\ldots,C_k\}$. Some of our main results are the following. (i) We show that $ex(n, C_{2l}, C_{2k}) = \Theta(n^l)$ for any $l, k \ge 2$. Moreover, we determine it asymptotically in the following cases: We show that $ex(n,C_4,C_{2k}) = (1+o(1)) \frac{(k-1)(k-2)}{4} n^2$ and that the maximum possible number of $C_6$'s in a $C_8$-free bipartite graph is $n^3 + O(n^{5/2})$. (ii) Solymosi and Wong proved that if Erd\H{o}s's Girth Conjecture holds, then for any $l \ge 3$ we have $ex(n,C_{2l},\mathscr C_{2l-1})=\Theta(n^{2l/(l-1)})$. We prove that forbidding any other even cycle decreases the number of $C_{2l}$'s significantly: For any $k > l$, we have $ex(n,C_{2l},\mathscr C_{2l-1} \cup \{C_{2k}\})=\Theta(n^2).$ More generally, we show that for any $k > l$ and $m \ge 2$ such that $2k \neq ml$, we have $ex(n,C_{ml},\mathscr C_{2l-1} \cup \{C_{2k}\})=\Theta(n^m).$ (iii) We prove $ex(n,C_{2l+1},\mathscr C_{2l})=\Theta(n^{2+1/l}),$ provided a strong version of Erd\H{o}s's Girth Conjecture holds (which is known to be true when $l = 2, 3, 5$). Moreover, forbidding one more cycle decreases the number of $C_{2l+1}$'s significantly: More precisely, we have $ex(n, C_{2l+1}, \mathscr C_{2l} \cup \{C_{2k}\}) = O(n^{2-\frac{1}{l+1}}),$ and $ex(n, C_{2l+1}, \mathscr C_{2l} \cup \{C_{2k+1}\}) = O(n^2)$ for $l > k \ge 2$. (iv) We also study the maximum number of paths of given length in a $C_k$-free graph, and prove asymptotically sharp bounds in some cases.Comment: 37 Pages; Substantially revised, contains several new results. Mistakes corrected based on the suggestions of a refere