Equitable orientations of sparse uniform hypergraphs

Caro, West, and Yuster studied how $r$-uniform hypergraphs can be oriented in such a way that (generalizations of) indegree and outdegree are as close to each other as can be hoped. They conjectured an existence result of such orientations for sparse hypergraphs, of which we present a proof

The Erd\H{o}s-Rothschild problem on edge-colourings with forbidden monochromatic cliques

Let $\mathbf{k} := (k_1,\dots,k_s)$ be a sequence of natural numbers. For a graph $G$, let $F(G;\mathbf{k})$ denote the number of colourings of the edges of $G$ with colours $1,\dots,s$ such that, for every $c \in \{1,\dots,s\}$, the edges of colour $c$ contain no clique of order $k_c$. Write $F(n;\mathbf{k})$ to denote the maximum of $F(G;\mathbf{k})$ over all graphs $G$ on $n$ vertices. This problem was first considered by Erd\H{o}s and Rothschild in 1974, but it has been solved only for a very small number of non-trivial cases. We prove that, for every $\mathbf{k}$ and $n$, there is a complete multipartite graph $G$ on $n$ vertices with $F(G;\mathbf{k}) = F(n;\mathbf{k})$. Also, for every $\mathbf{k}$ we construct a finite optimisation problem whose maximum is equal to the limit of $\log_2 F(n;\mathbf{k})/{n\choose 2}$ as $n$ tends to infinity. Our final result is a stability theorem for complete multipartite graphs $G$, describing the asymptotic structure of such $G$ with $F(G;\mathbf{k}) = F(n;\mathbf{k}) \cdot 2^{o(n^2)}$ in terms of solutions to the optimisation problem.Comment: 16 pages, to appear in Math. Proc. Cambridge Phil. So

Ramsey properties of algebraic graphs and hypergraphs

One of the central questions in Ramsey theory asks how small can be the size of the largest clique and independent set in a graph on $N$ vertices. By the celebrated result of Erd\H{o}s from 1947, the random graph on $N$ vertices with edge probability $1/2$, contains no clique or independent set larger than $2\log_2 N$, with high probability. Finding explicit constructions of graphs with similar Ramsey-type properties is a famous open problem. A natural approach is to construct such graphs using algebraic tools. Say that an $r$-uniform hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$ is \emph{algebraic of complexity $(n,d,m)$} if the vertices of $\mathcal{H}$ are elements of $\mathbb{F}^{n}$ for some field $\mathbb{F}$, and there exist $m$ polynomials $f_1,\dots,f_m:(\mathbb{F}^{n})^{r}\rightarrow \mathbb{F}$ of degree at most $d$ such that the edges of $\mathcal{H}$ are determined by the zero-patterns of $f_1,\dots,f_m$. The aim of this paper is to show that if an algebraic graph (or hypergraph) of complexity $(n,d,m)$ has good Ramsey properties, then at least one of the parameters $n,d,m$ must be large. In 2001, R\'onyai, Babai and Ganapathy considered the bipartite variant of the Ramsey problem and proved that if $G$ is an algebraic graph of complexity $(n,d,m)$ on $N$ vertices, then either $G$ or its complement contains a complete balanced bipartite graph of size $\Omega_{n,d,m}(N^{1/(n+1)})$. We extend this result by showing that such $G$ contains either a clique or an independent set of size $N^{\Omega(1/ndm)}$ and prove similar results for algebraic hypergraphs of constant complexity. We also obtain a polynomial regularity lemma for $r$-uniform algebraic hypergraphs that are defined by a single polynomial, that might be of independent interest. Our proofs combine algebraic, geometric and combinatorial tools.Comment: 23 page

Simplicial and Cellular Trees

Much information about a graph can be obtained by studying its spanning trees. On the other hand, a graph can be regarded as a 1-dimensional cell complex, raising the question of developing a theory of trees in higher dimension. As observed first by Bolker, Kalai and Adin, and more recently by numerous authors, the fundamental topological properties of a tree --- namely acyclicity and connectedness --- can be generalized to arbitrary dimension as the vanishing of certain cellular homology groups. This point of view is consistent with the matroid-theoretic approach to graphs, and yields higher-dimensional analogues of classical enumerative results including Cayley's formula and the matrix-tree theorem. A subtlety of the higher-dimensional case is that enumeration must account for the possibility of torsion homology in trees, which is always trivial for graphs. Cellular trees are the starting point for further high-dimensional extensions of concepts from algebraic graph theory including the critical group, cut and flow spaces, and discrete dynamical systems such as the abelian sandpile model.Comment: 39 pages (including 5-page bibliography); 5 figures. Chapter for forthcoming IMA volume "Recent Trends in Combinatorics

Resolution of the Oberwolfach problem

The Oberwolfach problem, posed by Ringel in 1967, asks for a decomposition of $K_{2n+1}$ into edge-disjoint copies of a given $2$-factor. We show that this can be achieved for all large $n$. We actually prove a significantly more general result, which allows for decompositions into more general types of factors. In particular, this also resolves the Hamilton-Waterloo problem for large $n$.Comment: 28 page