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Covhyp

The document discusses covering numbers of non-uniform hypergraphs, presenting key results including bounds on the maximum covering number g(n) and its relation to edge counts in graphs without cycles of the same length. Theorems are established to illustrate the behavior of g(n) and its applications to graph theory, particularly in relation to Erdös's problems. Additionally, it outlines connections between hypergraphs and their edge structures, providing proofs and open problems for further exploration.

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Anant Nimkar
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13 views15 pages

Covhyp

The document discusses covering numbers of non-uniform hypergraphs, presenting key results including bounds on the maximum covering number g(n) and its relation to edge counts in graphs without cycles of the same length. Theorems are established to illustrate the behavior of g(n) and its applications to graph theory, particularly in relation to Erdös's problems. Additionally, it outlines connections between hypergraphs and their edge structures, providing proofs and open problems for further exploration.

Uploaded by

Anant Nimkar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Covering Non-uniform

Hypergraphs

Endre Boros
Yair Caro
Zoltán Füredi
Raphael Yuster

1
Definitions and notations
 (H) = covering number of hypergraph H.

Here (H) = 2

• H(n) = family of all hypergraphs with n


vertices having distinct edge cardinalities.
• g(n) = maximum value of (H) taken over
all hypergraphs H H(n) .
• For C > 0 (real) and for k  0 (integer) let
g(n,C,k) denote the maximum value of (H)
taken over all hypergraphs with n vertices
having at most Cik edges with cardinality i.
Clearly, g(n) = g(n,1,0).

2
Trivial lower bound:
g(m(m+1)/2)  m
g (n)  2n (1  o(1))

In fact, g(10)=4.

The main results


• Theorem 1:
g(n,C,k) < (Ck!+1)n(k+1)/(k+2).
• Theorem 2: For n sufficiently large:
1.533 n  g ( n)  1.979 n

Open Problem
Determine: limsup g(n)/n½
liminf g(n)/n½

3
Interesting graph-theoretic application:
Erdös posed the following problem:
Determine the maximum number of edges in
an n-vertex graph with no two cycles of the
same length. Denote this maximum by n+f(n).
Using Theorem 2 we can show:
• Theorem 3: For n sufficiently large:
f ( n)  1.98 n

The previously known best results are due to


Lai who proved
1.5338 n  f ( n)  n log n
for n large. The lower bound is used to
construct the lower bound in Theorem 2.

4
The following simple relation connects f(n) and
g(n):
f(n)  g(n+f(n))-1
Proof:
Let G be a graph with n vertices and n+f(n)
edges having no two cycles with the same
length. Construct a hypergraph H whose
vertices are the edges of G and whose edges
are the cycles of G. Thus, we can cover the
edges of H with g(n+f(n)) vertices. This means
that there are g(n+f(n)) edges in G whose
removal results in an acyclic graph. Therefore,
n+f(n)- g(n+f(n))  n-1. 

g ( n)  1.979 n
Thus, by Theorem 2, since
we have that f (n)  1.979 n  f ( n)
which implies f (n)  1.98 n for n large.

5
A Turán-Type generalization
Not having two cycles with the same length is
just like saying there is no repeated element in
the family of all cycles. The family of all
cycles is the family of subdivisions of C3.

We can therefore generalize as follows:


Let H be a fixed graph. Let f(H,n) denote the
maximum number of edges in an n-vertex
graph with no two isomorphic subdivisions of
H. (let FH denote the family of subdivisions).
Fact:
 m  1
If H has h edges then there are at most
 
 h  1  elements in FH with m edges.
Thus, creating the appropriate hypergraph, it
has at most Cik edges with cardinality i for:
C=1/(h-1)! and k=h-1.
The upper bound for g(n,C,k) implies (with
some additional work):
f(H,n) < T(n,FH)+2T(n,FH)h/(h+1)+8T(n,FH)(h-1)/(h+1)
Mader proved that T(n,FH)=O(n). 6
Proof of Theorem 1
Let H be a hypergraph with n vertices. Consider
the following multilinear polynomial:
n
f ( x1 , x2 ,..., xn )  xi  (1  x j )
i 1 eH je

clearly, if xe is the characteristic vector of edge


e then, f(xe)=|e|+t(e) where t(e) is the number of
edges disjoint from e. Therefore,
 ( H )  min f ( x )
x0 ,1n
Notice the following equality, which holds for
any real vector in the unit n-dimensional cube:
pif(p1,…,pi-1,1,pi+1,…,pn)+(1-pi)f(p1,…,pi-1,0,pi+1,…,pn)=f(p1,…,pn).

This means that a fractional component of a


vector can always be rounded to 0 or 1 such that
the value of f does not increase. Obviously, this
rounding procedure can be implemented in
polynomial time. 7
We need to show that if H has n vertices and
at most Cik edges with cardinality i then
(H) < (Ck!+1)n(k+1)/(k+2).
Let 0 < α <1 and let S  V(H) be such that
(H)  |S|+t(S)= f(xs)  f(α,…, α).
The properties of H guarantee that
f(α,…, α) 
nα +C((1- α )+2k(1- α )2+…+nk(1- α )n) <
nα+C Σi ik(1- α)i.

Using term by term derivation we know that:


Σi ikxi < k!(1-x)-k-1 for all 0 < x < 1.

Thus, f(α,…, α) < nα+ Ck! α-k-1.


By setting α=n-1/(k+2) we have the proof. 

8
Proof of the upper bound in Theorem 2
• Lemma 1: if F is a hypergraph with n vertices
and m edges f1,…,fm where |fi|  |fi+1| and a  m
is the maximal integer for which |f1|+…+|fa| 
n then: (F)  (m+a)/2.

Proof: We construct the following greedy


covering: As long as the sum of cardinalities of
the non-covered edges exceeds n, we can pick
to the covering a vertex which covers at least
two new edges. By the definition of a, this
process halts when there remain at most a
uncovered edges. Thus, when this happens, we
only selected (m-a)/2 vertices to the covering,
and the remaining edges can be covered with a
vertices. Overall,
(F)  a + (m-a)/2 = (m+a)/2.

9
• Lemma 2: (a small linear program) Suppose
0 < yi for i=1,…,n and assume that there exists
an integer b for which
y1+2y2+…+byb  n < y1+2y2+…+byb+(b+1)yb+1
Then, the conditions 0  xi  yi for i=1,…,n
and x1+2x2+…+nxn  n imply:
x1+x2+…+xn  y1+y2+…+yb+1.

Proof: Consider the following linear program:


maximize x1+x2+…+xn
subject to 0  xi  yi for i=1,…,n
and to x1+2x2+…+nxn  n
By a weight shifting argument, in any
maximum solution, we cannot have xi<yi and
xi+1> 0. Thus, the maximum is obtained when
x1=y1,…xb=yb and xb+2=xb+3=…=xn=0. Therefore,
x1+x2+…+xn  y1+y2+…+yb+1. 

10
The proof:
• We assume H=(V,E), |V|=n, E={e1,…,en} |ei|=i.
• First, we create a random subset X  V where
each vertex is chosen to X independently with
probability p.
• Let F=F(X)  E be the set of edges not
intersecting X. Trivially, (H)  |X| + (F).
• Put F={f1,…,fm} where |fi|  |fi+1| and a  m is
the maximal integer for which |f1|+…+|fa|  n.
By Lemma 1 we get (H)  |X| + (a+m)/2.
• It suffices to show that
Exp [ |X| + (a+m)/2 ]  1.979n0.5
which is the same thing as showing:
Exp [|X|] + 0.5Exp[m]+0.5Exp[a]  1.979n0.5
The first two terms are easy:
• Exp [|X|] = np
• The probability that the edge ei does not
intersect X is exactly (1-p)i . Therefore:
Exp[m] = (1-p)+(1-p)2+…+(1-p)n

11
• Computing Exp[a] is very difficult, so we shall
compute an upper bound for Exp[a] instead.
Put A=A(X)={f1,…,fa}, and let xi be the
probability that ei  A. Clearly,
Exp[a] =Exp[|A|] = x1+x2+…+xn.
• Since A  F we have 0  xi  (1-p)i =yi.
• The expected contribution of ei to the sum of
cardinalities of the elements of A is ixi. Thus,
Exp[|f1| + … + |fa|] = x1+2x2+…+nxn. On the
other hand, by the definition of a, we always
have |f1| + … + |fa|  n. Thus,
x1+2x2+…+nxn n
• By Lemma 2 we have that:
Exp[a] = x1+x2+…+xn  y1+…+yb+1 where b
satisfies:
y1+2y2+…+byb  n < y1+2y2+…+byb+(b+1)yb+1

12
• Summing it all up we get:
(H)  np+
0.5 [(1-p)+(1-p)2+…+(1-p)n]+
(*)
0.5 [(1-p)+(1-p)2+…+(1-p)b+1]
• We now choose p=n-1/2 where 0 <  < 1 and
try to optimize the above. Note that b is not a
free variable. It depends on  since by its
i
definition: b
  
 i
i 0 
 1   n(1  o(1))
n

Thus, putting b+1=n1/2 and using the last


equation gives that  and  are related by:
1-(1+  )e-  = 2+o(1).
• Optimizing (*) with =0.81 (which forces
=2.76) yields (H) < 1.979n0.5 for n
sufficiently large.

13
Other versions of the problem
• For the fractional version, denote the
parameter by g*(n). It is not difficult to
show that g * (n)  2n  o(1) .
• Let f2(n)+n denote the maximum number
of edges in an n-vertex 2-connected graph
with no two cycles having the same length.

Shi proved that a 2-connected graph with


n+b edges has at least (b+2)(b+1)/2 cycles.
This immediately shows:
f 2 (n)  2n  o(1)

On the other hand, Chen, Lehel, Jacobson


and Shreve recently proved
f 2 (n)  n / 2 (1  o(1))

Here is an improvement showing:


f 2 (n)  n  O(n9 / 20 )
14
Let b2(n)=s denote the size of the largest sub-
sequence of [n] such that all s(s+1)/2 2-sums are
distinct (This is called a Sidon set).

Erdös and Turán proved that b2(n) =n0.5(1+o(1)).


The upper bound is difficult. Lower bound
follows from Difference Sets (Singer): If p is a
prime then there are p+1 distinct integers
a1,…,ap+1 such that the differences ai-aj (i≠j)
produce all numbers (except 0) modulo p2+p+1.
Example: p=5 and take 0,1,6,18,22,29.

Let p be a prime where 0 < p – n1/2 < O(n2/5). Put


m=p2+p+1. So, m-n=O(n9/10). Let a1,…,ap+1 be a
DS modulo m. By shifting we can assume:
a1=1 < a2 < … < ak=n-1 < …< ap+1  m.
Thus, p+1-k  b2(m-n+1)=O(n9/20) by the Erdös-
Turán Theorem.
Create a cycle with n vertices,
v ai v0,…,vn-1 and add
chords between v0 and for i=2,…,k-1. It has
n+k-2=n+n0.5-O(n9/20) edges, it is 2-connected, 15
and no two cycles have the same length.

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