Monochromatic loose paths in multicolored $k$-uniform cliques

TL;DR

This paper investigates the minimum size of complete k-uniform hypergraphs needed to guarantee a monochromatic loose path in any r-coloring, providing both constructive algorithms and non-constructive bounds.

Contribution

It introduces a new constructive method for finding monochromatic loose paths in multicolored hypergraphs with explicit bounds and algorithms, along with improved theoretical upper bounds.

Findings

Existence of an efficient algorithm with runtime at most cn^k

Constructive upper bound on R(P_ell^{(k)};r) of order k(ell+1)r(1+ln(r))

Non-constructive upper bound R(P_ell^{(k)};r) ≤ (k-1)ell r

Abstract

For integers $k\ge 2$ and $\ell\ge 0$, a $k$-uniform hypergraph is called a loose path of length $\ell$, and denoted by $P_\ell^{(k)}$, if it consists of $\ell $ edges $e_1,\dots,e_\ell$ such that $|e_i\cap e_j|=1$ if $|i-j|=1$ and $e_i\cap e_j=\emptyset$ if $|i-j|\ge2$. In other words, each pair of consecutive edges intersects on a single vertex, while all other pairs are disjoint. Let $R(P_\ell^{(k)};r)$ be the minimum integer $n$ such that every $r$-edge-coloring of the complete $k$-uniform hypergraph $K_n^{(k)}$ yields a monochromatic copy of $P_\ell^{(k)}$. In this paper we are mostly interested in constructive upper bounds on $R(P_\ell^{(k)};r)$, meaning that on the cost of possibly enlarging the order of the complete hypergraph, we would like to efficiently find a monochromatic copy of $P_\ell^{(k)}$ in every coloring. In particular, we show that there is a constant $c>0$ such that for all $k\ge 2$, $\ell\ge3$, $2\le r\le k-1$, and $n\ge k(\ell+1)r(1+\ln(r))$, there is an algorithm such that for every $r$-edge-coloring of the edges of $K_n^{(k)}$, it finds a monochromatic copy of $P_\ell^{(k)}$ in time at most $cn^k$. We also prove a non-constructive upper bound $R(P_\ell^{(k)};r)\le(k-1)\ell r$.