Multicolor Ramsey numbers on stars versus pat

TL;DR

This paper investigates multicolor Ramsey numbers involving stars and paths, providing new bounds and exact values that support Wang's conjecture under specific conditions.

Contribution

The authors establish new lower bounds and exact values for multicolor Ramsey numbers involving stars and paths, partially confirming Wang's conjecture.

Findings

New lower bounds for R(K_{1,n_1},...,K_{1,n_c},P_m)

Exact values obtained when m ≤ Σ and certain modular conditions

Results support Wang's conjecture in specific cases

Abstract

For given simple graphs $H_1,H_2,\dots,H_c$, the multicolor Ramsey number $R(H_1,H_2,\dots,H_c)$ is defined as the smallest positive integer $n$ such that for an arbitrary edge-decomposition $\{G_i\}^c_{i=1}$ of the complete graph $K_n$, at least one $G_i$ has a subgraph isomorphic to $H_i$. Let $m,n_1,n_2,\dots,n_c$ be positive integers and $\Sigma=\sum_{i=1}^{c}(n_i-1)$. Some bounds and exact values of $R(K_{1,n_1},\dots,K_{1,n_c},P_m)$ have been obtained in literature. Wang (Graphs Combin., 2020) conjectured that if $\Sigma\not\equiv 0\pmod{m-1}$ and $\Sigma+1\ge (m-3)^2$, then $R(K_{1,n_1},\ldots, K_{1,n_c}, P_m)=\Sigma+m-1.$ In this note, we give a new lower bound and some exact values of $R(K_{1,n_1},\dots,K_{1,n_c},P_m)$ when $m\leq\Sigma$, $\Sigma\equiv k\pmod{m-1}$, and $2\leq k \leq m-2$. These results partially confirm Wang's conjecture.