English

Decision problem for Hamilton $2$-cycles in $4$-graphs

Combinatorics 2026-07-13 v1 Computational Complexity

Abstract

A 44-uniform 22-cycle in a 44-uniform hypergraph of length tt is a cyclic ordering of 2t2t vertices v1v2v2tv1v_1v_2\cdots v_{2t}v_1 such that v2i+1v2i+2v2i+3v2i+4v_{2i+1}v_{2i+2}v_{2i+3}v_{2i+4} are edges for 0it10\le i\le t-1 while the addition is modulo 2t2t. For every γ>0\gamma>0 and large nn, we characterize the nn-vertex 44-uniform hypergraphs such that every triple of vertices is contained in at least (1/3+γ)n(1/3+\gamma)n edges and admits a Hamilton 22-cycle. Up to the error term γn\gamma n, the assumption on the minimum codegree is best possible and verifies a conjecture of Garbe and Mycroft. As a consequence, this gives a polynomial-time algorithm that decides whether an nn-vertex 44-uniform hypergraph with minimum codegree (1/3+γ)n(1/3+\gamma)n contains a Hamilton 22-cycle. This stands as a steep contrast to the graph case where such a hardness gap has size o(n)o(n).

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.11872,
  title  = {Decision problem for Hamilton $2$-cycles in $4$-graphs},
  author = {Luyining Gan and Jie Han and Bin Wang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.11872},
  year   = {2026}
}

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43 pages