Improved bounds on a generalization of Tuza's conjecture

TL;DR

This paper establishes improved bounds on the ratio of covering to matching parameters in hypergraphs, generalizing Tuza's conjecture and providing new fractional and Turán number bounds for various hypergraph parameters.

Contribution

It proves tighter bounds on the ratio of covering to matching parameters in hypergraphs, extending previous results and conjectures, including fractional and Turán number bounds.

Findings

Bounded the ratio ^{*(r-1)}(H)/ u^{(r-1)}(H) for all r-uniform hypergraphs.

Established that ^{(m)}(H)/ u^{*(m)}(H)  _m(r, m+1) for all r-uniform hypergraphs.

Derived specific bounds for the cases (r,m) = (4,2) and (4,3).

Abstract

For an $r$-uniform hypergraph $H$, let $\nu^{(m)}(H)$ denote the maximum size of a set~$M$ of edges in $H$ such that every two edges in $M$ intersect in less than $m$ vertices, and let $\tau^{(m)}(H)$ denote the minimum size of a collection $C$ of $m$-sets of vertices such that every edge in $H$ contains an element of $C$. The fractional analogues of these parameters are denoted by $\nu^{*(m)}(H)$ and $\tau^{*(m)}(H)$, respectively. Generalizing a famous conjecture of Tuza on covering triangles in a graph, Aharoni and Zerbib conjectured that for every $r$-uniform hypergraph $H$, $\tau^{(r-1)}(H)/\nu^{(r-1)}(H) \leq \lceil{\frac{r+1}{2}}\rceil$. In this paper we prove bounds on the ratio between the parameters $\tau^{(m)}$ and $\nu^{(m)}$, and their fractional analogues. Our main result is that, for every $r$-uniform hypergraph~$H$, \[ \tau^{*(r-1)}(H)/\nu^{(r-1)}(H) \le \begin{cases} \frac{3}{4}r - \frac{r}{4(r+1)} &\text{for }r\text{ even,}\\ \frac{3}{4}r - \frac{r}{4(r+2)} &\text{for }r\text{ odd.} \\ \end{cases} \] This improves the known bound of $r-1$. We also prove that, for every $r$-uniform hypergraph $H$, $\tau^{(m)}(H)/\nu^{*(m)}(H) \le \operatorname{ex}_m(r, m+1)$, where the Tur\'an number $\operatorname{ex}_r(n, k)$ is the maximum number of edges in an $r$-uniform hypergraph on $n$ vertices that does not contain a copy of the complete $r$-uniform hypergraph on $k$ vertices. Finally, we prove further bounds in the special cases $(r,m)=(4,2)$ and $(r,m)=(4,3)$.