English

Lower and Upper Bounds for Small Canonical and Ordered Ramsey Numbers

Optimization and Control 2025-11-07 v1 Combinatorics

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate three extensions of Ramsey numbers to other combinatorial settings. We first consider ordered Ramsey numbers. Here, we ask for a monochromatic copy of a linearly ordered graph GG in every 22-edge-coloring of a linearly ordered complete graph KnK_n. The smallest such nn is denoted by R(G)\vec{R}(G). Next, we study canonical Ramsey numbers. A canonical coloring of a linearly ordered graph GG is an edge-coloring in which GG is monochromatic, rainbow, or min/max-lexicographic. In the latter case, each pair of edges receives the same color if and only if they share the same first (respectively, second) vertex. Erd\H{o}s and Rado showed that for every pp there exists nn such that every edge-coloring of a linearly ordered KnK_n contains a canonical copy of KpK_p; the smallest such nn is denoted by ER(G)ER(G). Finally, we examine unordered canonical Ramsey numbers, introduced by Richer. An edge-coloring of GG is orderable if there exists a linear ordering of its vertices such that the color of each edge is determined by its first vertex. Unlike lexicographic colorings, this notion also includes monochromatic colorings. Richer proved that for all ss and tt, there exists nn such that every edge-coloring of KnK_n contains an orderable copy of KsK_s or a rainbow KtK_t. The smallest such nn is denoted by CR(s,t)CR(s,t). In all three settings, we focus on determining the corresponding Ramsey numbers for small graphs GG. We use tabu search and integer programming to obtain lower bounds, and flag algebras or integer programming to establish upper bounds. Among other results, we determine R(G)\vec{R}(G) for all graphs GG on up to four vertices except K4K_4^-, ER(P4)ER(P_4) for all orderings of P4P_4, and the exact values CR(6,3)=26CR(6,3)=26 and CR(3,5)=13CR(3,5)=13.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2511.04364,
  title  = {Lower and Upper Bounds for Small Canonical and Ordered Ramsey Numbers},
  author = {Daniel Brosch and Bernard Lidický and Sydney Miyasaki and Diane Puges},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.04364},
  year   = {2025}
}