English

Off-diagonal online size Ramsey numbers for paths

Combinatorics 2023-10-17 v1

Abstract

Consider the following Ramsey game played on the edge set of KNK_{\mathbb N}. In every round, Builder selects an edge and Painter colours it red or blue. Builder's goal is to force Painter to create a red copy of a path PkP_k on kk vertices or a blue copy of PnP_n as soon as possible. The online (size) Ramsey number r~(Pk,Pn)\tilde{r}(P_k,P_n) is the number of rounds in the game provided Builder and Painter play optimally. We prove that r~(Pk,Pn)(5/3+o(1))n\tilde{r}(P_k,P_n)\le (5/3+o(1))n provided k=o(n)k=o(n) and nn\to \infty. We also show that r~(P4,Pn)7n/51\tilde{r}(P_4,P_n)\le \lceil 7n/5\rceil -1 for n10n\ge 10, which improves the upper bound obtained by J.~Cyman, T.~Dzido, J.~Lapinskas, and A.~Lo and implies their conjecture that r~(P4,Pn)=7n/51\tilde{r}(P_4,P_n)=\lceil 7n/5\rceil -1.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2310.09377,
  title  = {Off-diagonal online size Ramsey numbers for paths},
  author = {Małgorzata Bednarska-Bzdȩga},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2310.09377},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

18 pages, accepted in European Journal of Combinatorics

R2 v1 2026-06-28T12:50:19.955Z