Anti-van der Waerden numbers of 3-term arithmetic progressions

The \emph{anti-van der Waerden number}, denoted by $aw([n],k)$, is the smallest $r$ such that every exact $r$-coloring of $[n]$ contains a rainbow $k$-term arithmetic progression. Butler et. al. showed that $\lceil \log_3 n \rceil + 2 \le aw([n],3) \le \lceil \log_2 n \rceil + 1$, and conjectured that there exists a constant $C$ such that $aw([n],3) \le \lceil \log_3 n \rceil + C$. In this paper, we show this conjecture is true by determining $aw([n],3)$ for all $n$. We prove that for $7\cdot 3^{m-2}+1 \leq n \leq 21 \cdot 3^{m-2}$, \[ aw([n],3)=\left\{\begin{array}{ll} m+2, & \mbox{if $n=3^m$}\\ m+3, & \mbox{otherwise}. \end{array}\right.\

Rainbow Numbers of Zn\mathbb{Z}_n for a1x1+a2x2+a3x3=ba_1x_1+a_2x_2+a_3x_3 =b

An exact $r$-coloring of a set $S$ is a surjective function $c:S\to [r]$. The rainbow number of a set $S$ for equation $eq$ is the smallest integer $r$ such that every exact $r$-coloring of $S$ contains a rainbow solution to $eq$. In this paper, the rainbow number of $\Z_p$, for $p$ prime and the equation $a_1x_1 + a_2x_2 + a_3x_3 = b$ is determined. The rainbow number of $\Z_{n}$, for a natural number $n$, is determined under certain conditions

Arithmetic Progressions in the Primitive Length Spectrum

In this article, we prove that every arithmetic locally symmetric orbifold of classical type without Euclidean or compact factors has arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions in its primitive length spectrum. Moreover, we show the stronger property that every primitive length occurs in arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions in its primitive length spectrum. This confirms one direction of a conjecture of Lafont--McReynolds, which states that the property of having every primitive length occur in arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions characterizes the arithmeticity of such spaces

The ergodic and combinatorial approaches to Szemer\'edi's theorem

A famous theorem of Szemer\'edi asserts that any set of integers of positive upper density will contain arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions. In its full generality, we know of four types of arguments that can prove this theorem: the original combinatorial (and graph-theoretical) approach of Szemer\'edi, the ergodic theory approach of Furstenberg, the Fourier-analytic approach of Gowers, and the hypergraph approach of Nagle-R\"odl-Schacht-Skokan and Gowers. In this lecture series we introduce the first, second and fourth approaches, though we will not delve into the full details of any of them. One of the themes of these lectures is the strong similarity of ideas between these approaches, despite the fact that they initially seem rather different.Comment: 48 pages, no figures. Based on a lecture series given at the Montreal Workshop on Additive Combinatorics, April 6-12 200

On sequences covering all rainbow kk-progressions

Let $\text{ac}(n,k)$ denote the smallest positive integer with the property that there exists an $n$-colouring $f$ of $\{1,\dots,\text{ac}(n,k)\}$ such that for every $k$-subset $R \subseteq \{1, \dots, n\}$ there exists an (arithmetic) $k$-progression $A$ in $\{1,\dots,\text{ac}(n,k)\}$ with $\{f(a) : a \in A\} = R$. Determining the behaviour of the function $\text{ac}(n,k)$ is a previously unstudied problem. We use the first moment method to give an asymptotic upper bound for $\text{ac}(n,k)$ for the case $k = o(n^{1/{5}})$

An exploration of anti-van der Waerden numbers

In this paper results of the anti-van der Waerden number of various mathematical objects are discussed. The anti-van der Waerden number of a mathematical object G, denoted by aw(G,k), is the smallest r such that every exact r-coloring of G contains a rainbow k-term arithmetic progression. In this paper, results on the anti-van der Waerden number of the integers, groups such as the integers modulo n, and graphs are given. A connection between the Ramsey number of paths and the anti-van der Waerden number of graphs is established. The anti-van der Waerden number of [m]X[n] is explored. Finally, connections between anti-van der Waerden numbers, rainbow numbers, and anti-Schur numbers are discussed

Rainbow Arithmetic Progressions

In this paper, we investigate the anti-Ramsey (more precisely, anti-van der Waerden) properties of arithmetic progressions. For positive integers n and k, the expression aw([n]; k) denotes the smallest number of colors with which the integers f1; : : : ; ng can be colored and still guarantee there is a rainbow arithmetic progression of length k. We establish that aw([n]; 3) = (log n) and aw([n]; k) = n1o(1) for k 4. For positive integers n and k, the expression aw(Zn; k) denotes the smallest number of colors with which elements of the cyclic group of order n can be colored and still guarantee there is a rainbow arithmetic progression of length k. In this setting, arithmetic progressions can \wrap around, and aw(Zn; 3) behaves quite differently from aw([n]; 3), depending on the divisibility of n. As shown in [Jungic et al., Combin. Probab. Comput., 2003], aw(Z2m; 3) = 3 for any positive integer m. We establish that aw(Zn; 3) can be computed from knowledge of aw(Zp; 3) for all of the prime factors p of n. However, for k 4, the behavior is similar to the previous case, that is, aw(Zn; k) = n1o(1)

Arbeitsgemeinschaft: Ergodic Theory and Combinatorial Number Theory

The aim of this Arbeitsgemeinschaft was to introduce young researchers with various backgrounds to the multifaceted and mutually perpetuating connections between ergodic theory, topological dynamics, combinatorics, and number theory

Exploiting Isomorphic Subgraphs in SAT (Long version)

While static symmetry breaking has been explored in the SAT community for decades, only as of 2010 research has focused on exploiting the same discovered symmetry dynamically, during the run of the SAT solver, by learning extra clauses. The two methods are distinct and not compatible. The former prunes solutions, whereas the latter does not -- it only prunes areas of the search that do not have solutions, like standard conflict clauses. Both approaches, however, require what we call \emph{full symmetry}, namely a propositionally-consistent mapping $\sigma$ between the literals, such that $\sigma(\varphi) \equiv \varphi$, where here $\equiv$ means syntactic equivalence modulo clause ordering and literal ordering within the clauses. In this article we show that such full symmetry is not a necessary condition for adding extra clauses: isomorphism between possibly-overlapping subgraphs of the colored incidence graph is sufficient. While finding such subgraphs is a computationally hard problem, there are many cases in which they can be detected a priory by analyzing the high-level structure of the problem from which the CNF was derived. We demonstrate this principle with several well-known problems, including Van der Waerden numbers, bounded model checking and Boolean Pythagorean triples.Comment: The short version was submitted to SAT'2

Hitting sets and colorings of hypergraphs

In this paper we study the minimal size of edges in hypergraph families which guarantees the existence of a polychromatic coloring, that is, a $k$-coloring of a vertex set such that every hyperedge contains a vertex of all $k$ color classes. We also investigate the connection of this problem with $c$-shallow hitting sets: sets of vertices that intersect each hyperedge in at least one and at most $c$ vertices. We determine in some hypergraph families the minimal $c$ for which a $c$-shallow hitting set exists. We also study this problem for a special hypergraph family, which is induced by arithmetic progressions with a difference from a given set. We show connections between some geometric hypergraph families and the latter, and prove relations between the set of differences and polychromatic colorability