On the number of 4-cycles in a tournament

If $T$ is an $n$-vertex tournament with a given number of $3$-cycles, what can be said about the number of its $4$-cycles? The most interesting range of this problem is where $T$ is assumed to have $c\cdot n^3$ cyclic triples for some $c>0$ and we seek to minimize the number of $4$-cycles. We conjecture that the (asymptotic) minimizing $T$ is a random blow-up of a constant-sized transitive tournament. Using the method of flag algebras, we derive a lower bound that almost matches the conjectured value. We are able to answer the easier problem of maximizing the number of $4$-cycles. These questions can be equivalently stated in terms of transitive subtournaments. Namely, given the number of transitive triples in $T$, how many transitive quadruples can it have? As far as we know, this is the first study of inducibility in tournaments.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Graphs with few 3-cliques and 3-anticliques are 3-universal

For given integers k, l we ask whether every large graph with a sufficiently small number of k-cliques and k-anticliques must contain an induced copy of every l-vertex graph. Here we prove this claim for k=l=3 with a sharp bound. A similar phenomenon is established as well for tournaments with k=l=4.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figur

The feasible region of induced graphs

The feasible region $\Omega_{{\rm ind}}(F)$ of a graph $F$ is the collection of points $(x,y)$ in the unit square such that there exists a sequence of graphs whose edge densities approach $x$ and whose induced $F$-densities approach $y$. A complete description of $\Omega_{{\rm ind}}(F)$ is not known for any $F$ with at least four vertices that is not a clique or an independent set. The feasible region provides a lot of combinatorial information about $F$. For example, the supremum of $y$ over all $(x,y)\in \Omega_{{\rm ind}}(F)$ is the inducibility of $F$ and $\Omega_{{\rm ind}}(K_r)$ yields the Kruskal-Katona and clique density theorems. We begin a systematic study of $\Omega_{{\rm ind}}(F)$ by proving some general statements about the shape of $\Omega_{{\rm ind}}(F)$ and giving results for some specific graphs $F$. Many of our theorems apply to the more general setting of quantum graphs. For example, we prove a bound for quantum graphs that generalizes an old result of Bollob\'as for the number of cliques in a graph with given edge density. We also consider the problems of determining $\Omega_{{\rm ind}}(F)$ when $F=K_r^-$, $F$ is a star, or $F$ is a complete bipartite graph. In the case of $K_r^-$ our results sharpen those predicted by the edge-statistics conjecture of Alon et. al. while also extending a theorem of Hirst for $K_4^-$ that was proved using computer aided techniques and flag algebras. The case of the 4-cycle seems particularly interesting and we conjecture that $\Omega_{{\rm ind}}(C_4)$ is determined by the solution to the triangle density problem, which has been solved by Razborov.Comment: 27 page

The exact minimum number of triangles in graphs of given order and size

What is the minimum number of triangles in a graph of given order and size? Motivated by earlier results of Mantel and Tur\'an, Rademacher solved the first non-trivial case of this problem in 1941. The problem was revived by Erd\H{o}s in 1955; it is now known as the Erd\H{o}s-Rademacher problem. After attracting much attention, it was solved asymptotically in a major breakthrough by Razborov in 2008. In this paper, we provide an exact solution for all large graphs whose edge density is bounded away from~$1$, which in this range confirms a conjecture of Lov\'asz and Simonovits from 1975. Furthermore, we give a description of the extremal graphs.Comment: Published in Forum of Mathematics, Pi, Volume 8, e8 (2020