Star-critical Ramsey numbers and regular Ramsey numbers for stars

TL;DR

This paper investigates star-critical and regular Ramsey numbers for star graphs, providing exact formulas that disprove a previous conjecture and depend on the parity of the number of even parameters.

Contribution

It establishes explicit formulas for star-critical and regular Ramsey numbers for stars, disproving a conjecture and highlighting the role of parity in these calculations.

Findings

Exact formula for star-critical Ramsey numbers for stars with even parameters.

Exact formula for regular Ramsey numbers depending on the parity of the parameters.

Disproof of a conjecture by Budden and DeJonge (2022).

Abstract

Let $G$ be a graph, $H$ be a subgraph of $G$, and let $G- H$ be the graph obtained from $G$ by removing a copy of $H$. Let $K_{1, n}$ be the star on $n+ 1$ vertices. Let $t\geq 2$ be an integer and $H_{1}, \dots, H_{t}$ and $H$ be graphs, and let $H\rightarrow (H_{1}, \dots, H_{t})$ denote that every $t$ coloring of $E(H)$ yields a monochromatic copy of $H_{i}$ in color $i$ for some $i\in [t]$. Ramsey number $r(H_{1}, \dots, H_{t})$ is the minimum integer $N$ such that $K_{N}\rightarrow (H_{1}, \dots, H_{t})$. Star-critical Ramsey number $r_{*}(H_{1}, \dots, H_{t})$ is the minimum integer $k$ such that $K_{N}- K_{1, N- 1- k}\rightarrow (H_{1}, \dots, H_{t})$ where $N= r(H_{1}, \dots, H_{t})$. Let $rr(H_{1}, \dots, H_{t})$ be the regular Ramsey number for $H_{1}, \dots, H_{t}$, which is the minimum integer $r$ such that if $G$ is an $r$-regular graph on $r(H_{1}, \dots, H_{t})$ vertices, then $G\rightarrow (H_{1}, \dots, H_{t})$. Let $m_{1}, \dots, m_{t}$ be integers larger than one, exactly $k$ of which are even. In this paper, we prove that if $k\geq 2$ is even, then $r_{*}(K_{1, m_{1}}, \dots, K_{1, m_{t}})= \sum_{i= 1}^{t} m_{i}- t+ 1- \frac{k}{2}$ which disproves a conjecture of Budden and DeJonge in 2022. Furthermore, we prove that if $k\geq 2$ is even, then $rr(K_{1, m_{1}}, \dots, K_{1, m_{t}})= \sum_{i= 1}^{t} m_{i}- t$. Otherwise, $rr(K_{1, m_{1}}, \dots, K_{1, m_{t}})= \sum_{i= 1}^{t} m_{i}- t+ 1$.