Covering and tiling hypergraphs with tight cycles

Given $3 \leq k \leq s$, we say that a $k$-uniform hypergraph $C^k_s$ is a tight cycle on $s$ vertices if there is a cyclic ordering of the vertices of $C^k_s$ such that every $k$ consecutive vertices under this ordering form an edge. We prove that if $k \ge 3$ and $s \ge 2k^2$, then every $k$-uniform hypergraph on $n$ vertices with minimum codegree at least $(1/2 + o(1))n$ has the property that every vertex is covered by a copy of $C^k_s$. Our result is asymptotically best possible for infinitely many pairs of $s$ and $k$, e.g. when $s$ and $k$ are coprime. A perfect $C^k_s$-tiling is a spanning collection of vertex-disjoint copies of $C^k_s$. When $s$ is divisible by $k$, the problem of determining the minimum codegree that guarantees a perfect $C^k_s$-tiling was solved by a result of Mycroft. We prove that if $k \ge 3$ and $s \ge 5k^2$ is not divisible by $k$ and $s$ divides $n$, then every $k$-uniform hypergraph on $n$ vertices with minimum codegree at least $(1/2 + 1/(2s) + o(1))n$ has a perfect $C^k_s$-tiling. Again our result is asymptotically best possible for infinitely many pairs of $s$ and $k$, e.g. when $s$ and $k$ are coprime with $k$ even.Comment: Revised version, accepted for publication in Combin. Probab. Compu

On the Existence of Loose Cycle Tilings and Rainbow Cycles

abstract: Extremal graph theory results often provide minimum degree conditions which guarantee a copy of one graph exists within another. A perfect $F$-tiling of a graph $G$ is a collection $\mathcal{F}$ of subgraphs of $G$ such that every element of $\mathcal{F}$ is isomorphic to $F$ and such that every vertex in $G$ is in exactly one element of $\mathcal{F}$. Let $C^{3}_{t}$ denote the loose cycle on $t = 2s$ vertices, the $3$-uniform hypergraph obtained by replacing the edges $e = \{u, v\}$ of a graph cycle $C$ on $s$ vertices with edge triples $\{u, x_e, v\}$, where $x_e$ is uniquely assigned to $e$. This dissertation proves for even $t \geq 6$, that any sufficiently large $3$-uniform hypergraph $H$ on $n \in t \mathbb{Z}$ vertices with minimum $1$-degree \delta^1(H) \geq {n - 1 \choose 2} - {\Bsize \choose 2} + c(t,n) + 1, where $c(t,n) \in \{0, 1, 3\}$, contains a perfect $C^{3}_{t}$-tiling. The result is tight, generalizing previous results on $C^3_4$ by Han and Zhao. For an edge colored graph $G$, let the minimum color degree $\delta^c(G)$ be the minimum number of distinctly colored edges incident to a vertex. Call $G$ rainbow if every edge has a unique color. For $\ell \geq 5$, this dissertation proves that any sufficiently large edge colored graph $G$ on $n$ vertices with $\delta^c(G) \geq \frac{n + 1}{2}$ contains a rainbow cycle on $\ell$ vertices. The result is tight for odd $\ell$ and extends previous results for $\ell = 3$. In addition, for even $\ell \geq 4$, this dissertation proves that any sufficiently large edge colored graph $G$ on $n$ vertices with $\delta^c(G) \geq \frac{n + c(\ell)}{3}$, where $c(\ell) \in \{5, 7\}$, contains a rainbow cycle on $\ell$ vertices. The result is tight when $6 \nmid \ell$. As a related result, this dissertation proves for all $\ell \geq 4$, that any sufficiently large oriented graph $D$ on $n$ vertices with $\delta^+(D) \geq \frac{n + 1}{3}$ contains a directed cycle on $\ell$ vertices. This partially generalizes a result by Kelly, K\"uhn, and Osthus that uses minimum semidegree rather than minimum out degree.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Mathematics 201

Extremal results in hypergraph theory via the absorption method

The so-called "absorbing method" was first introduced in a systematic way by Rödl, Ruciński and Szemerédi in 2006, and has found many uses ever since. Speaking in a general sense, it is useful for finding spanning substructures of combinatorial structures. We establish various results of different natures, in both graph and hypergraph theory, most of them using the absorbing method: 1. We prove an asymptotically best-possible bound on the strong chromatic number with respect to the maximum degree of the graph. This establishes a weak version of a conjecture of Aharoni, Berger and Ziv. 2. We determine asymptotic minimum codegree thresholds which ensure the existence of tilings with tight cycles (of a given size) in uniform hypergraphs. Moreover, we prove results on coverings with tight cycles. 3. We show that every 2-coloured complete graph on the integers contains a monochromatic infinite path whose vertex set is sufficiently "dense" in the natural numbers. This improves results of Galvin and Erdős and of DeBiasio and McKenney