Vertex Ramsey problems in the hypercube

If we 2-color the vertices of a large hypercube what monochromatic substructures are we guaranteed to find? Call a set S of vertices from Q_d, the d-dimensional hypercube, Ramsey if any 2-coloring of the vertices of Q_n, for n sufficiently large, contains a monochromatic copy of S. Ramsey's theorem tells us that for any r \geq 1 every 2-coloring of a sufficiently large r-uniform hypergraph will contain a large monochromatic clique (a complete subhypergraph): hence any set of vertices from Q_d that all have the same weight is Ramsey. A natural question to ask is: which sets S corresponding to unions of cliques of different weights from Q_d are Ramsey? The answer to this question depends on the number of cliques involved. In particular we determine which unions of 2 or 3 cliques are Ramsey and then show, using a probabilistic argument, that any non-trivial union of 39 or more cliques of different weights cannot be Ramsey. A key tool is a lemma which reduces questions concerning monochromatic configurations in the hypercube to questions about monochromatic translates of sets of integers.Comment: 26 pages, 3 figure

Problems in extremal graph theory

We consider a variety of problems in extremal graph and set theory. The {\em chromatic number} of $G$, $\chi(G)$, is the smallest integer $k$ such that $G$ is $k$-colorable. The {\it square} of $G$, written $G^2$, is the supergraph of $G$ in which also vertices within distance 2 of each other in $G$ are adjacent. A graph $H$ is a {\it minor} of $G$ if $H$ can be obtained from a subgraph of $G$ by contracting edges. We show that the upper bound for $\chi(G^2)$ conjectured by Wegner (1977) for planar graphs holds when $G$ is a $K_4$-minor-free graph. We also show that $\chi(G^2)$ is equal to the bound only when $G^2$ contains a complete graph of that order. One of the central problems of extremal hypergraph theory is finding the maximum number of edges in a hypergraph that does not contain a specific forbidden structure. We consider as a forbidden structure a fixed number of members that have empty common intersection as well as small union. We obtain a sharp upper bound on the size of uniform hypergraphs that do not contain this structure, when the number of vertices is sufficiently large. Our result is strong enough to imply the same sharp upper bound for several other interesting forbidden structures such as the so-called strong simplices and clusters. The {\em $n$-dimensional hypercube}, $Q_n$, is the graph whose vertex set is $\{0,1\}^n$ and whose edge set consists of the vertex pairs differing in exactly one coordinate. The generalized Tur\'an problem asks for the maximum number of edges in a subgraph of a graph $G$ that does not contain a forbidden subgraph $H$. We consider the Tur\'an problem where $G$ is $Q_n$ and $H$ is a cycle of length $4k+2$ with $k\geq 3$. Confirming a conjecture of Erd{\H o}s (1984), we show that the ratio of the size of such a subgraph of $Q_n$ over the number of edges of $Q_n$ is $o(1)$, i.e. in the limit this ratio approaches 0 as $n$ approaches infinity

Random subcube intersection graphs I: cliques and covering

We study random subcube intersection graphs, that is, graphs obtained by selecting a random collection of subcubes of a fixed hypercube $Q_d$ to serve as the vertices of the graph, and setting an edge between a pair of subcubes if their intersection is non-empty. Our motivation for considering such graphs is to model `random compatibility' between vertices in a large network. For both of the models considered in this paper, we determine the thresholds for covering the underlying hypercube $Q_d$ and for the appearance of s-cliques. In addition we pose some open problems.Comment: 38 pages, 1 figur

An extremal theorem in the hypercube

The hypercube Q_n is the graph whose vertex set is {0,1}^n and where two vertices are adjacent if they differ in exactly one coordinate. For any subgraph H of the cube, let ex(Q_n, H) be the maximum number of edges in a subgraph of Q_n which does not contain a copy of H. We find a wide class of subgraphs H, including all previously known examples, for which ex(Q_n, H) = o(e(Q_n)). In particular, our method gives a unified approach to proving that ex(Q_n, C_{2t}) = o(e(Q_n)) for all t >= 4 other than 5.Comment: 6 page

Ramsey numbers of cubes versus cliques

The cube graph Q_n is the skeleton of the n-dimensional cube. It is an n-regular graph on 2^n vertices. The Ramsey number r(Q_n, K_s) is the minimum N such that every graph of order N contains the cube graph Q_n or an independent set of order s. Burr and Erdos in 1983 asked whether the simple lower bound r(Q_n, K_s) >= (s-1)(2^n - 1)+1 is tight for s fixed and n sufficiently large. We make progress on this problem, obtaining the first upper bound which is within a constant factor of the lower bound.Comment: 26 page

Exact Ramsey numbers of odd cycles via nonlinear optimisation

For a graph G, the k-colour Ramsey number R k(G) is the least integer N such that every k-colouring of the edges of the complete graph K N contains a monochromatic copy of G. Let C n denote the cycle on n vertices. We show that for fixed k≥2 and n odd and sufficiently large, R k(C n)=2 k−1(n−1)+1. This resolves a conjecture of Bondy and Erdős for large n. The proof is analytic in nature, the first step of which is to use the regularity method to relate this problem in Ramsey theory to one in nonlinear optimisation. This allows us to prove a stability-type generalisation of the above and establish a correspondence between extremal k-colourings for this problem and perfect matchings in the k-dimensional hypercube Q k