English

Odd-Ramsey numbers of Hamilton cycles

Combinatorics 2025-11-14 v1

Abstract

The odd-Ramsey number rodd(n,H)r_{{\text odd}}(n,H) of a graph HH, as introduced by Alon in his work on graph-codes, is the minimum number of colours needed to edge-colour KnK_n so that every copy of HH intersects some colour class in an odd number of edges. In this paper, we determine the odd-Ramsey number of Hamilton cycles up to a small multiplicative factor, proving that rodd(n,Cn)=Θ(n)r_{{\text odd}}(n,C_n) = \Theta(\sqrt{n}). Our upper bound follows from an explicit finite-field construction, while the matching lower bound uses a combinatorial framework based on parity switches. We also initiate the study of odd-Ramsey numbers of Hamilton cycles in Dirac graphs, demonstrating that a small increase in the minimum degree beyond n/2n/2 forces nontrivial odd-Ramsey numbers.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2511.10497,
  title  = {Odd-Ramsey numbers of Hamilton cycles},
  author = {Simona Boyadzhiyska and Shagnik Das and Thomas Lesgourgues and Kalina Petrova},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.10497},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

16 pages