English

First-Fit is Linear on Posets Excluding Two Long Incomparable Chains

Combinatorics 2011-11-11 v3

Abstract

A poset is (r + s)-free if it does not contain two incomparable chains of size r and s, respectively. We prove that when r and s are at least 2, the First-Fit algorithm partitions every (r + s)-free poset P into at most 8(r-1)(s-1)w chains, where w is the width of P. This solves an open problem of Bosek, Krawczyk, and Szczypka (SIAM J. Discrete Math., 23(4):1992--1999, 2010).

Cite

@article{arxiv.1006.5704,
  title  = {First-Fit is Linear on Posets Excluding Two Long Incomparable Chains},
  author = {Gwenaël Joret and Kevin G. Milans},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1006.5704},
  year   = {2011}
}

Comments

v3: fixed some typos

R2 v1 2026-06-21T15:42:36.589Z