Finding Even Cycles Faster via Capped k-Walks

In this paper, we consider the problem of finding a cycle of length $2k$ (a $C_{2k}$) in an undirected graph $G$ with $n$ nodes and $m$ edges for constant $k\ge2$. A classic result by Bondy and Simonovits [J.Comb.Th.'74] implies that if $m \ge100k n^{1+1/k}$, then $G$ contains a $C_{2k}$, further implying that one needs to consider only graphs with $m = O(n^{1+1/k})$. Previously the best known algorithms were an $O(n^2)$ algorithm due to Yuster and Zwick [J.Disc.Math'97] as well as a $O(m^{2-(1+\lceil k/2\rceil^{-1})/(k+1)})$ algorithm by Alon et al. [Algorithmica'97]. We present an algorithm that uses $O(m^{2k/(k+1)})$ time and finds a $C_{2k}$ if one exists. This bound is $O(n^2)$ exactly when $m=\Theta(n^{1+1/k})$. For $4$-cycles our new bound coincides with Alon et al., while for every $k>2$ our bound yields a polynomial improvement in $m$. Yuster and Zwick noted that it is "plausible to conjecture that $O(n^2)$ is the best possible bound in terms of $n$". We show "conditional optimality": if this hypothesis holds then our $O(m^{2k/(k+1)})$ algorithm is tight as well. Furthermore, a folklore reduction implies that no combinatorial algorithm can determine if a graph contains a $6$-cycle in time $O(m^{3/2-\epsilon})$ for any $\epsilon>0$ under the widely believed combinatorial BMM conjecture. Coupled with our main result, this gives tight bounds for finding $6$-cycles combinatorially and also separates the complexity of finding $4$- and $6$-cycles giving evidence that the exponent of $m$ in the running time should indeed increase with $k$. The key ingredient in our algorithm is a new notion of capped $k$-walks, which are walks of length $k$ that visit only nodes according to a fixed ordering. Our main technical contribution is an involved analysis proving several properties of such walks which may be of independent interest.Comment: To appear at STOC'1

Asymptotic multipartite version of the Alon-Yuster theorem

In this paper, we prove the asymptotic multipartite version of the Alon-Yuster theorem, which is a generalization of the Hajnal-Szemer\'edi theorem: If $k\geq 3$ is an integer, $H$ is a $k$-colorable graph and $\gamma>0$ is fixed, then, for every sufficiently large $n$, where $|V(H)|$ divides $n$, and for every balanced $k$-partite graph $G$ on $kn$ vertices with each of its corresponding $\binom{k}{2}$ bipartite subgraphs having minimum degree at least $(k-1)n/k+\gamma n$, $G$ has a subgraph consisting of $kn/|V(H)|$ vertex-disjoint copies of $H$. The proof uses the Regularity method together with linear programming.Comment: 22 pages, 1 figur

On embedding well-separable graphs

Call a simple graph $H$ of order $n$ well-separable, if by deleting a separator set of size $o(n)$ the leftover will have components of size at most $o(n)$. We prove, that bounded degree well-separable spanning subgraphs are easy to embed: for every $\gamma >0$ and positive integer $\Delta$ there exists an $n_0$ such that if $n>n_0$, $\Delta(H) \le \Delta$ for a well-separable graph $H$ of order $n$ and $\delta(G) \ge (1-{1 \over 2(\chi(H)-1)} + \gamma)n$ for a simple graph $G$ of order $n$, then $H \subset G$. We extend our result to graphs with small band-width, too.Comment: 11 pages, submitted for publicatio

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