Ramsey properties of randomly perturbed graphs: cliques and cycles

Given graphs $H_1,H_2$, a graph $G$ is $(H_1,H_2)$-Ramsey if for every colouring of the edges of $G$ with red and blue, there is a red copy of $H_1$ or a blue copy of $H_2$. In this paper we investigate Ramsey questions in the setting of randomly perturbed graphs: this is a random graph model introduced by Bohman, Frieze and Martin in which one starts with a dense graph and then adds a given number of random edges to it. The study of Ramsey properties of randomly perturbed graphs was initiated by Krivelevich, Sudakov and Tetali in 2006; they determined how many random edges must be added to a dense graph to ensure the resulting graph is with high probability $(K_3,K_t)$-Ramsey (for $t\ge 3$). They also raised the question of generalising this result to pairs of graphs other than $(K_3,K_t)$. We make significant progress on this question, giving a precise solution in the case when $H_1=K_s$ and $H_2=K_t$ where $s,t \ge 5$. Although we again show that one requires polynomially fewer edges than in the purely random graph, our result shows that the problem in this case is quite different to the $(K_3,K_t)$-Ramsey question. Moreover, we give bounds for the corresponding $(K_4,K_t)$-Ramsey question; together with a construction of Powierski this resolves the $(K_4,K_4)$-Ramsey problem. We also give a precise solution to the analogous question in the case when both $H_1=C_s$ and $H_2=C_t$ are cycles. Additionally we consider the corresponding multicolour problem. Our final result gives another generalisation of the Krivelevich, Sudakov and Tetali result. Specifically, we determine how many random edges must be added to a dense graph to ensure the resulting graph is with high probability $(C_s,K_t)$-Ramsey (for odd $s\ge 5$ and $t\ge 4$).Comment: 24 pages + 12-page appendix; v2: cited independent work of Emil Powierski, stated results for cliques in graphs of low positive density separately (Theorem 1.6) for clarity; v3: author accepted manuscript, to appear in CP

Packing k-partite k-uniform hypergraphs

Let $G$ and $H$ be $k$-graphs ($k$-uniform hypergraphs); then a perfect $H$-packing in $G$ is a collection of vertex-disjoint copies of $H$ in $G$ which together cover every vertex of $G$. For any fixed $H$ let $\delta(H, n)$ be the minimum $\delta$ such that any $k$-graph $G$ on $n$ vertices with minimum codegree $\delta(G) \geq \delta$ contains a perfect $H$-packing. The problem of determining $\delta(H, n)$ has been widely studied for graphs (i.e. $2$-graphs), but little is known for $k \geq 3$. Here we determine the asymptotic value of $\delta(H, n)$ for all complete $k$-partite $k$-graphs $H$, as well as a wide class of other $k$-partite $k$-graphs. In particular, these results provide an asymptotic solution to a question of R\"odl and Ruci\'nski on the value of $\delta(H, n)$ when $H$ is a loose cycle. We also determine asymptotically the codegree threshold needed to guarantee an $H$-packing covering all but a constant number of vertices of $G$ for any complete $k$-partite $k$-graph $H$.Comment: v2: Updated with minor corrections. Accepted for publication in Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series

Almost all optimally coloured complete graphs contain a rainbow Hamilton path

A subgraph $H$ of an edge-coloured graph is called rainbow if all of the edges of $H$ have different colours. In 1989, Andersen conjectured that every proper edge-colouring of $K_{n}$ admits a rainbow path of length $n-2$. We show that almost all optimal edge-colourings of $K_{n}$ admit both (i) a rainbow Hamilton path and (ii) a rainbow cycle using all of the colours. This result demonstrates that Andersen's Conjecture holds for almost all optimal edge-colourings of $K_{n}$ and answers a recent question of Ferber, Jain, and Sudakov. Our result also has applications to the existence of transversals in random symmetric Latin squares.Comment: 29 pages, 5 figure

Decompositions into isomorphic rainbow spanning trees

A subgraph of an edge-coloured graph is called rainbow if all its edges have distinct colours. Our main result implies that, given any optimal colouring of a sufficiently large complete graph $K_{2n}$, there exists a decomposition of $K_{2n}$ into isomorphic rainbow spanning trees. This settles conjectures of Brualdi--Hollingsworth (from 1996) and Constantine (from 2002) for large graphs.Comment: Version accepted to appear in JCT

A proof of the Ryser-Brualdi-Stein conjecture for large even nn

A Latin square of order $n$ is an $n$ by $n$ grid filled using $n$ symbols so that each symbol appears exactly once in each row and column. A transversal in a Latin square is a collection of cells which share no symbol, row or column. The Ryser-Brualdi-Stein conjecture, with origins from 1967, states that every Latin square of order $n$ contains a transversal with $n-1$ cells, and a transversal with $n$ cells if $n$ is odd. Keevash, Pokrovskiy, Sudakov and Yepremyan recently improved the long-standing best known bounds towards this conjecture by showing that every Latin square of order $n$ has a transversal with $n-O(\log n/\log\log n)$ cells. Here, we show, for sufficiently large $n$, that every Latin square of order $n$ has a transversal with $n-1$ cells. We also apply our methods to show that, for sufficiently large $n$, every Steiner triple system of order $n$ has a matching containing at least $(n-4)/3$ edges. This improves a recent result of Keevash, Pokrovskiy, Sudakov and Yepremyan, who found such matchings with $n/3-O(\log n/\log\log n)$ edges, and proves a conjecture of Brouwer from 1981 for large $n$.Comment: 71 pages, 13 figure

Universality for transversal Hamilton cycles

Let $\mathbf{G}=\{G_1, \ldots, G_m\}$ be a graph collection on a common vertex set $V$ of size $n$ such that $\delta(G_i) \geq (1+o(1))n/2$ for every $i \in [m]$. We show that $\mathbf{G}$ contains every Hamilton cycle pattern. That is, for every map $\chi: [n] \to [m]$ there is a Hamilton cycle whose $i$-th edge lies in $G_{\chi(i)}$.Comment: 18 page