Sharp bounds for decomposing graphs into edges and triangles

TL;DR

This paper determines the exact extremal values for decomposing large graphs into edges and triangles, extending previous bounds and characterizing extremal graphs for all parameters.

Contribution

It provides the exact values of the extremal function _3^(n) and characterizes all extremal graphs for large n, generalizing prior asymptotic results.

Findings

Exact values of _3^(n) for all  and large n

Characterization of extremal graphs for =3, including complete and bipartite graphs

Extension of previous asymptotic bounds to precise extremal configurations

Abstract

For a real constant $\alpha$, let $\pi_3^\alpha(G)$ be the minimum of twice the number of $K_2$'s plus $\alpha$ times the number of $K_3$'s over all edge decompositions of $G$ into copies of $K_2$ and $K_3$, where $K_r$ denotes the complete graph on $r$ vertices. Let $\pi_3^\alpha(n)$ be the maximum of $\pi_3^\alpha(G)$ over all graphs $G$ with $n$ vertices. The extremal function $\pi_3^3(n)$ was first studied by Gy\H{o}ri and Tuza [Decompositions of graphs into complete subgraphs of given order, Studia Sci. Math. Hungar. 22 (1987), 315--320]. In a recent progress on this problem, Kr\'al', Lidick\'y, Martins and Pehova [Decomposing graphs into edges and triangles, Combin. Prob. Comput. 28 (2019) 465--472] proved via flag algebras that $\pi_3^3(n)\le (1/2+o(1))n^2$. We extend their result by determining the exact value of $\pi_3^\alpha(n)$ and the set of extremal graphs for all $\alpha$ and sufficiently large $n$. In particular, we show for $\alpha=3$ that $K_n$ and the complete bipartite graph $K_{\lfloor n/2\rfloor,\lceil n/2\rceil}$ are the only possible extremal examples for large $n$.