Chromatic Ramsey number of acyclic hypergraphs

TL;DR

This paper investigates the chromatic Ramsey number for acyclic hypergraphs, providing bounds and exact values for specific hypergraph classes, and introduces new techniques involving intersection graphs and list coloring.

Contribution

It establishes new bounds and exact values for the chromatic Ramsey number of acyclic hypergraphs, including matchings and stars, and connects hypergraph coloring to intersection graph properties.

Findings

Linear upper bounds for matchings and stars in hypergraphs.

Exact value of the chromatic Ramsey number for 3-uniform matchings with two colors.

Proved a bound relating hypergraph chromatic number to its 1-intersection graph.

Abstract

Suppose that $T$ is an acyclic $r$-uniform hypergraph, with $r\ge 2$. We define the ($t$-color) chromatic Ramsey number $\chi(T,t)$ as the smallest $m$ with the following property: if the edges of any $m$-chromatic $r$-uniform hypergraph are colored with $t$ colors in any manner, there is a monochromatic copy of $T$. We observe that $\chi(T,t)$ is well defined and $$\left\lceil {R^r(T,t)-1\over r-1}\right \rceil +1 \le \chi(T,t)\le |E(T)|^t+1$$ where $R^r(T,t)$ is the $t$-color Ramsey number of $H$. We give linear upper bounds for $\chi(T,t)$ when T is a matching or star, proving that for $r\ge 2, k\ge 1, t\ge 1$, $\chi(M_k^r,t)\le (t-1)(k-1)+2k$ and $\chi(S_k^r,t)\le t(k-1)+2$ where $M_k^r$ and $S_k^r$ are, respectively, the $r$-uniform matching and star with $k$ edges. The general bounds are improved for $3$-uniform hypergraphs. We prove that $\chi(M_k^3,2)=2k$, extending a special case of Alon-Frankl-Lov\'asz' theorem. We also prove that $\chi(S_2^3,t)\le t+1$, which is sharp for $t=2,3$. This is a corollary of a more general result. We define $H^{[1]}$ as the 1-intersection graph of $H$, whose vertices represent hyperedges and whose edges represent intersections of hyperedges in exactly one vertex. We prove that $\chi(H)\le \chi(H^{[1]})$ for any $3$-uniform hypergraph $H$ (assuming $\chi(H^{[1]})\ge 2$). The proof uses the list coloring version of Brooks' theorem.