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Jenssen 2021 exact ramsey numbers odd cycles via

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theorem_1_2: The exact k-color Ramsey number of a long odd cycle, proving the Bondy–Erdős conjecture in the regime of fixed k, with no effective bound on how large n must be.


Jenssen, Matthew and Skokan, Jozef, Exact {R}amsey numbers of odd cycles via nonlinear optimisation. Adv. Math. 376 (2021), Paper No. 107444, 46.

The copy read for this card is arXiv:1608.05705v1 (19 August 2016), the only version the arXiv listing shows with printed and physical pages 1--37 and a text layer; p. 2 was also read on the rendered page image. The journal identity is Adv. Math. 376 (2021), Paper No. 107444, DOI 10.1016/j.aim.2020.107444 (Crossref record read). The labels and locators below are the preprint's; the journal edition was not read and no edition equivalence is asserted. The arXiv record names arXiv's non-exclusive distribution license (arXiv:1608.05705), every other right reserved.

Read status: claims checked for Conjecture 1.1, display (1.1) and Theorem 1.2 (p. 2, read clause by clause on the page image and in the text layer); Theorem 3.2 (p. 5) was read clause by clause on the page image; no proof was read.

Theorem 1.2 shows that for each fixed k >= 2 and odd n sufficiently large, the k-color Ramsey number of the cycle C_n equals 2^{k-1}(n-1)+1, resolving the conjecture of Bondy and Erdos for large n; previously only k = 2 and k = 3 were known exactly. The proof first uses the regularity method (in the style of Luczak) to convert the Ramsey problem into maximizing the l_1-norm over a compact subset S of R^{3^k}, so that maximal elements of S correspond to extremal colorings. Classifying the extremal points of S yields a stability-type strengthening (Theorem 3.2) generalizing the result of Kohayakawa, Simonovits and Skokan, and shows extremal k-colorings correspond to perfect matchings of the hypercube Q_k, so their number of classes is doubly exponential in k -- disproving the belief that all extremal colorings arise by iterated doubling. Because the argument uses compactness, no effective bound on how large n must be is obtained, and the authors note the result is genuinely restricted to large n since Day and Johnson showed R_k(C_n) > (n-1)(2+eps)^{k-1}, with eps = eps(n) > 0, for each fixed odd n and all large k. Problem 554 fixes the cycle and lets the number of colors grow, so Theorem 1.2 bears on it only from the opposite regime: it gives the exact numerator R_k(C_n) for fixed k and large odd n, with the classification of extremal colorings, and nothing about the limit in k.

Source: https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.05705.

Bears on. #554; #556: the case k=3k=3 of Theorem 1.2 is the odd half of the problem's bound, R3(Cn)=4n−3R_3(C_n)=4n-3 for all sufficiently large odd nn, which the paper records as first resolved by Kohayakawa, Simonovits and Skokan (p. 3); the threshold on nn is not effective.

Results to transcribe.

  • Theorem 1.2: for each fixed k >= 2, R_k(C_n) = 2^{k-1}(n-1)+1 holds for every odd n above a threshold depending on k, proving the Bondy-Erdos conjecture for large n.
  • Theorem 3.2 (stability, p. 5): for k >= 2, odd n and 1/n << eta << eps << 1, a k-coloring of K_N with N > (2^{k-1}-eta)n and no monochromatic C_n has N <= 2^{k-1}(n-1) and is eps-close to a hypercube coloring (one built from a perfect matching of Q_k). The paper notes after the theorem, not in it, that the number of classes of such colorings is doubly exponential in k.
  • Method: Regularity reduces the problem to maximizing the l_1-norm over a compact subset of R^{3^k}, whose extreme points classify extremal colorings.

No file of this source is held: no license on record permits its redistribution, and the card cites the edition it names above.