Multipartite hypergraphs achieving equality in Ryser's conjecture

A famous conjecture of Ryser is that in an $r$-partite hypergraph the covering number is at most $r-1$ times the matching number. If true, this is known to be sharp for $r$ for which there exists a projective plane of order $r-1$. We show that the conjecture, if true, is also sharp for the smallest previously open value, namely $r=7$. For $r\in\{6,7\}$, we find the minimal number $f(r)$ of edges in an intersecting $r$-partite hypergraph that has covering number at least $r-1$. We find that $f(r)$ is achieved only by linear hypergraphs for $r\le5$, but that this is not the case for $r\in\{6,7\}$. We also improve the general lower bound on $f(r)$, showing that $f(r)\ge 3.052r+O(1)$. We show that a stronger form of Ryser's conjecture that was used to prove the $r=3$ case fails for all $r>3$. We also prove a fractional version of the following stronger form of Ryser's conjecture: in an $r$-partite hypergraph there exists a set $S$ of size at most $r-1$, contained either in one side of the hypergraph or in an edge, whose removal reduces the matching number by 1.Comment: Minor revisions after referee feedbac

Covering complete partite hypergraphs by monochromatic components

A well-known special case of a conjecture attributed to Ryser states that k-partite intersecting hypergraphs have transversals of at most k-1 vertices. An equivalent form was formulated by Gy\'arf\'as: if the edges of a complete graph K are colored with k colors then the vertex set of K can be covered by at most k-1 sets, each connected in some color. It turned out that the analogue of the conjecture for hypergraphs can be answered: Z. Kir\'aly proved that in every k-coloring of the edges of the r-uniform complete hypergraph K^r (r >= 3), the vertex set of K^r can be covered by at most $\lceil k/r \rceil$ sets, each connected in some color. Here we investigate the analogue problem for complete r-uniform r-partite hypergraphs. An edge coloring of a hypergraph is called spanning if every vertex is incident to edges of any color used in the coloring. We propose the following analogue of Ryser conjecture. In every spanning (r+t)-coloring of the edges of a complete r-uniform r-partite hypergraph, the vertex set can be covered by at most t+1 sets, each connected in some color. Our main result is that the conjecture is true for 1 <= t <= r-1. We also prove a slightly weaker result for t >= r, namely that t+2 sets, each connected in some color, are enough to cover the vertex set. To build a bridge between complete r-uniform and complete r-uniform r-partite hypergraphs, we introduce a new notion. A hypergraph is complete r-uniform (r,l)-partite if it has all r-sets that intersect each partite class in at most l vertices. Extending our results achieved for l=1, we prove that for any r >= 3, 2 <= l = 1+r-l, in every spanning k-coloring of the edges of a complete r-uniform (r,l)-partite hypergraph, the vertex set can be covered by at most 1+\lfloor \frac{k-r+\ell-1}{\ell}\rfloor sets, each connected in some color.Comment: 14 page

Hamiltonicity and σ\sigma-hypergraphs

We define and study a special type of hypergraph. A $\sigma$-hypergraph $H= H(n,r,q$ $\mid$ $\sigma$), where $\sigma$ is a partition of $r$, is an $r$-uniform hypergraph having $nq$ vertices partitioned into $n$ classes of $q$ vertices each. If the classes are denoted by $V_1$, $V_2$,...,$V_n$, then a subset $K$ of $V(H)$ of size $r$ is an edge if the partition of $r$ formed by the non-zero cardinalities $\mid$ $K$ $\cap$ $V_i \mid$, $1 \leq i \leq n$, is $\sigma$. The non-empty intersections $K$ $\cap$ $V_i$ are called the parts of $K$, and $s(\sigma)$ denotes the number of parts. We consider various types of cycles in hypergraphs such as Berge cycles and sharp cycles in which only consecutive edges have a nonempty intersection. We show that most $\sigma$-hypergraphs contain a Hamiltonian Berge cycle and that, for $n \geq s+1$ and $q \geq r(r-1)$, a $\sigma$-hypergraph $H$ always contains a sharp Hamiltonian cycle. We also extend this result to $k$-intersecting cycles

Non-intersecting Ryser hypergraphs

A famous conjecture of Ryser states that every $r$-partite hypergraph has vertex cover number at most $r - 1$ times the matching number. In recent years, hypergraphs meeting this conjectured bound, known as $r$-Ryser hypergraphs, have been studied extensively. It was recently proved by Haxell, Narins and Szab\'{o} that all $3$-Ryser hypergraphs with matching number $\nu > 1$ are essentially obtained by taking $\nu$ disjoint copies of intersecting $3$-Ryser hypergraphs. Abu-Khazneh showed that such a characterisation is false for $r = 4$ by giving a computer generated example of a $4$-Ryser hypergraph with $\nu = 2$ whose vertex set cannot be partitioned into two sets such that we have an intersecting $4$-Ryser hypergraph on each of these parts. Here we construct new infinite families of $r$-Ryser hypergraphs, for any given matching number $\nu > 1$, that do not contain two vertex disjoint intersecting $r$-Ryser subhypergraphs.Comment: 8 pages, some corrections in the proof of Lemma 3.6, added more explanation in the appendix, and other minor change

An asymptotic bound for the strong chromatic number

The strong chromatic number $\chi_{\text{s}}(G)$ of a graph $G$ on $n$ vertices is the least number $r$ with the following property: after adding $r \lceil n/r \rceil - n$ isolated vertices to $G$ and taking the union with any collection of spanning disjoint copies of $K_r$ in the same vertex set, the resulting graph has a proper vertex-colouring with $r$ colours. We show that for every $c > 0$ and every graph $G$ on $n$ vertices with $\Delta(G) \ge cn$, $\chi_{\text{s}}(G) \leq (2 + o(1)) \Delta(G)$, which is asymptotically best possible.Comment: Minor correction, accepted for publication in Combin. Probab. Compu

A family of extremal hypergraphs for Ryser's conjecture

Ryser's Conjecture states that for any $r$-partite $r$-uniform hypergraph, the vertex cover number is at most $r{-}1$ times the matching number. This conjecture is only known to be true for $r\leq 3$ in general and for $r\leq 5$ if the hypergraph is intersecting. There has also been considerable effort made for finding hypergraphs that are extremal for Ryser's Conjecture, i.e. $r$-partite hypergraphs whose cover number is $r-1$ times its matching number. Aside from a few sporadic examples, the set of uniformities $r$ for which Ryser's Conjecture is known to be tight is limited to those integers for which a projective plane of order $r-1$ exists. We produce a new infinite family of $r$-uniform hypergraphs extremal to Ryser's Conjecture, which exists whenever a projective plane of order $r-2$ exists. Our construction is flexible enough to produce a large number of non-isomorphic extremal hypergraphs. In particular, we define what we call the {\em Ryser poset} of extremal intersecting $r$-partite $r$-uniform hypergraphs and show that the number of maximal and minimal elements is exponential in $\sqrt{r}$. This provides further evidence for the difficulty of Ryser's Conjecture