A framework for forcing constructions at successors of singular cardinals

We describe a framework for proving consistency results about singular cardinals of arbitrary cofinality and their successors. This framework allows the construction of models in which the Singular Cardinals Hypothesis fails at a singular cardinal κ of uncountable cofinality, while κ^+ enjoys various combinatorial properties. As a sample application, we prove the consistency (relative to that of ZFC plus a supercompact cardinal) of there being a strong limit singular cardinal κ of uncountable cofinality where SCH fails and such that there is a collection of size less than 2^{κ^+} of graphs on κ^+ such that any graph on κ^+ embeds into one of the graphs in the collection

Graph Isomorphism and the Lasserre Hierarchy

In this paper we show lower bounds for a certain large class of algorithms solving the Graph Isomorphism problem, even on expander graph instances. Spielman [25] shows an algorithm for isomorphism of strongly regular expander graphs that runs in time exp(O(n^(1/3)) (this bound was recently improved to expf O(n^(1/5) [5]). It has since been an open question to remove the requirement that the graph be strongly regular. Recent algorithmic results show that for many problems the Lasserre hierarchy works surprisingly well when the underlying graph has expansion properties. Moreover, recent work of Atserias and Maneva [3] shows that k rounds of the Lasserre hierarchy is a generalization of the k-dimensional Weisfeiler-Lehman algorithm for Graph Isomorphism. These two facts combined make the Lasserre hierarchy a good candidate for solving graph isomorphism on expander graphs. Our main result rules out this promising direction by showing that even Omega(n) rounds of the Lasserre semidefinite program hierarchy fail to solve the Graph Isomorphism problem even on expander graphs.Comment: 22 pages, 3 figures, submitted to CC

On the number of unlabeled vertices in edge-friendly labelings of graphs

Let $G$ be a graph with vertex set $V(G)$ and edge set $E(G)$, and $f$ be a 0-1 labeling of $E(G)$ so that the absolute difference in the number of edges labeled 1 and 0 is no more than one. Call such a labeling $f$ \emph{edge-friendly}. We say an edge-friendly labeling induces a \emph{partial vertex labeling} if vertices which are incident to more edges labeled 1 than 0, are labeled 1, and vertices which are incident to more edges labeled 0 than 1, are labeled 0. Vertices that are incident to an equal number of edges of both labels we call \emph{unlabeled}. Call a procedure on a labeled graph a \emph{label switching algorithm} if it consists of pairwise switches of labels. Given an edge-friendly labeling of $K_n$, we show a label switching algorithm producing an edge-friendly relabeling of $K_n$ such that all the vertices are labeled. We call such a labeling \textit{opinionated}.Comment: 7 pages, accepted to Discrete Mathematics, special issue dedicated to Combinatorics 201

Some colouring problems for Paley graphs

The Paley graph Pq, where q≡1(mod4) is a prime power, is the graph with vertices the elements of the finite field Fq and an edge between x and y if and only if x-y is a non-zero square in Fq. This paper gives new results on some colouring problems for Paley graphs and related discussion. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved