On the minimum degree of minimal Ramsey graphs for cliques versus cycles

TL;DR

This paper investigates the minimum degree of minimal q-Ramsey graphs for various combinations of cliques, cycles, and trees, extending known results to asymmetric cases and multiple colors with tight bounds.

Contribution

It determines the minimum degree parameter for asymmetric tuples involving cliques, cycles, and trees, and generalizes results to multiple colors with near-tight bounds.

Findings

Exact values of s_2 for clique-tree and clique-cycle pairs.

Exact value of s_2 for two different cycles.

Bounds on s_q for multiple colors involving cycles and cliques.

Abstract

A graph $G$ is said to be $q$-Ramsey for a $q$-tuple of graphs $(H_1,\ldots,H_q)$, denoted by $G\to_q(H_1,\ldots,H_q)$, if every $q$-edge-coloring of $G$ contains a monochromatic copy of $H_i$ in color $i,$ for some $i\in[q]$. Let $s_q(H_1,\ldots,H_q)$ denote the smallest minimum degree of $G$ over all graphs $G$ that are minimal $q$-Ramsey for $(H_1,\ldots,H_q)$ (with respect to subgraph inclusion). The study of this parameter was initiated in 1976 by Burr, Erd\H{o}s and Lov\'asz, who determined its value precisely for a pair of cliques. Over the past two decades the parameter $s_q$ has been studied by several groups of authors, the main focus being on the symmetric case, where $H_i\cong H$ for all $i\in [q]$. The asymmetric case, in contrast, has received much less attention. In this paper, we make progress in this direction, studying asymmetric tuples consisting of cliques, cycles and trees. We determine $s_2(H_1,H_2)$ when $(H_1,H_2)$ is a pair of one clique and one tree, a pair of one clique and one cycle, and when it is a pair of two different cycles. We also generalize our results to multiple colors and obtain bounds on $s_q(C_\ell,\ldots,C_\ell,K_t,\ldots,K_t)$ in terms of the size of the cliques $t$, the number of cycles, and the number of cliques. Our bounds are tight up to logarithmic factors when two of the three parameters are fixed.