The chromatic number of almost stable Kneser hypergraphs

TL;DR

This paper determines the chromatic number of almost stable Kneser hypergraphs, showing it matches that of standard Kneser hypergraphs under certain conditions, using topological methods like the $Z_p$-Tucker lemma.

Contribution

It establishes the chromatic number for almost stable Kneser hypergraphs, extending known results to a broader class using topological combinatorics.

Findings

Chromatic number equals that of standard Kneser hypergraphs for prime p and n ≥ kp.

Extension to almost 2^{μ(r)}-stable hypergraphs for any r with n ≥ kr.

Uses $Z_p$-Tucker lemma to prove the main result.

Abstract

Let $V(n,k,s)$ be the set of $k$-subsets $S$ of $[n]$ such that for all $i,j\in S$, we have $|i-j|\geq s$ We define almost $s$-stable Kneser hypergraph $KG^r{{[n]}\choose k}_{s{\tiny{\textup{-stab}}}}^{\displaystyle\sim}$ to be the $r$-uniform hypergraph whose vertex set is $V(n,k,s)$ and whose edges are the $r$-uples of disjoint elements of $V(n,k,s)$. With the help of a $Z_p$-Tucker lemma, we prove that, for $p$ prime and for any $n\geq kp$, the chromatic number of almost 2-stable Kneser hypergraphs $KG^p {{[n]}\choose k}_{2{\tiny{\textup{-stab}}}}^{\displaystyle\sim}$ is equal to the chromatic number of the usual Kneser hypergraphs $KG^p{{[n]}\choose k}$, namely that it is equal to $\lceil\frac{n-(k-1)p}{p-1}\rceil.$ Defining $\mu(r)$ to be the number of prime divisors of $r$, counted with multiplicities, this result implies that the chromatic number of almost $2^{\mu(r)}$-stable Kneser hypergraphs $KG^r{{[n]}\choose k}_{2^{\mu(r)}{\tiny{\textup{-stab}}}}^{\displaystyle\sim}$ is equal to the chromatic number of the usual Kneser hypergraphs $KG^r{{[n]}\choose k}$ for any $n\geq kr$, namely that it is equal to $\lceil\frac{n-(k-1)r}{r-1}\rceil.$