Subdivisions with Distance Constraints in Large Graphs

In this dissertation we are concerned with sharp degree conditions that guarantee the existence of certain types of subdivisions in large graphs. Of particular interest are subdivisions with a certain number of arbitrarily specified vertices and with prescribed path lengths. Our non-standard approach makes heavy use of the Regularity Lemma (Szemerédi, 1978), the Blow-Up Lemma (Komlós, Sárkózy, and Szemerédi, 1994), and the minimum degree panconnectivity criterion (Williamson, 1977).Sharp minimum degree criteria for a graph G to be H-linked have recently been discovered. We define (H,w,d)-linkage, a condition stronger than H-linkage, by including a weighting function w consisting of required lengths for each edge-path of a desired H-subdivision. We establish sharp minimum degree criteria for a large graph G to be (H,w,d)-linked for all nonnegative d. We similarly define the weaker condition (H,S,w,d)-semi-linkage, where S denotes the set of vertices of H whose corresponding vertices in an H-subdivision are arbitrarily specified. We prove similar sharp minimum degree criteria for a large graph G to be (H,S,w,d)-semi-linked for all nonnegativeWe also examine path coverings in large graphs, which could be seen as a special case of (H,S,w)-semi-linkage. In 2000, Enomoto and Ota conjectured that a graph G of order n with degree sum σ2(G) satisfying σ2(G) \u3e n + k - 2 may be partitioned into k paths, each of prescribed order and with a specified starting vertex. We prove the Enomoto-Ota Conjecture for graphs of sufficiently large order