Domination in transitive colorings of tournaments

An edge coloring of a tournament T with colors 1,2,…,k is called \it k-transitive \rm if the digraph T(i) defined by the edges of color i is transitively oriented for each 1≤i≤k. We explore a conjecture of the second author: For each positive integer k there exists a (least) p(k) such that every k-transitive tournament has a dominating set of at most p(k) vertices. We show how this conjecture relates to other conjectures and results. For example, it is a special case of a well-known conjecture of Erd\H os, Sands, Sauer and Woodrow (so the conjecture is interesting even if false). We show that the conjecture implies a stronger conjecture, a possible extension of a result of B\'ar\'any and Lehel on covering point sets by boxes. The principle used leads also to an upper bound O(22d−1dlogd) on the d-dimensional box-cover number that is better than all previous bounds, in a sense close to best possible. We also improve the best bound known in 3-dimensions from 314 to 64 and propose possible further improvements through finding the maximum domination number over parity tournaments

Solving the kernel perfect problem by (simple) forbidden subdigraphs for digraphs in some families of generalized tournaments and generalized bipartite tournaments

A digraph such that every proper induced subdigraph has a kernel is said to be \emph{kernel perfect} (KP for short) (\emph{critical kernel imperfect} (CKI for short) resp.) if the digraph has a kernel (does not have a kernel resp.). The unique CKI-tournament is $\overrightarrow{C}_3$ and the unique KP-tournaments are the transitive tournaments, however bipartite tournaments are KP. In this paper we characterize the CKI- and KP-digraphs for the following families of digraphs: locally in-/out-semicomplete, asymmetric arc-locally in-/out-semicomplete, asymmetric $3$-quasi-transitive and asymmetric $3$-anti-quasi-transitive $TT_3$-free and we state that the problem of determining whether a digraph of one of these families is CKI is polynomial, giving a solution to a problem closely related to the following conjecture posted by Bang-Jensen in 1998: the kernel problem is polynomially solvable for locally in-semicomplete digraphs.Comment: 13 pages and 5 figure

The weakness of the Erd\H{o}s-Moser theorem under arithmetic reductions

The Erd\H{o}s-Moser theorem $(\mathsf{EM})$ says that every infinite tournament admits an infinite transitive subtournament. We study the computational behavior of the Erd\H{o}s-Moser theorem with respect to the arithmetic hierarchy, and prove that $\Delta^0_n$ instances of $\mathsf{EM}$ admit low${}_{n+1}$ solutions for every $n \geq 1$, and that if a set $B$ is not arithmetical, then every instance of $\mathsf{EM}$ admits a solution relative to which $B$ is still not arithmetical. We also provide a level-wise refinement of this theorem. These results are part of a larger program of computational study of combinatorial theorems in Reverse Mathematics