English

On Ramsey-minimal infinite graphs

Combinatorics 2021-03-15 v3 Logic

Abstract

For fixed finite graphs GG, HH, a common problem in Ramsey theory is to study graphs FF such that F(G,H)F \to (G,H), i.e. every red-blue coloring of the edges of FF produces either a red GG or a blue HH. We generalize this study to infinite graphs GG, HH; in particular, we want to determine if there is a minimal such FF. This problem has strong connections to the study of self-embeddable graphs: infinite graphs which properly contain a copy of themselves. We prove some compactness results relating this problem to the finite case, then give some general conditions for a pair (G,H)(G,H) to have a Ramsey-minimal graph. We use these to prove, for example, that if G=SG=S_\infty is an infinite star and H=nK2H=nK_2, n1n \ge 1 is a matching, then the pair (S,nK2)(S_\infty,nK_2) admits no Ramsey-minimal graphs.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2011.14074,
  title  = {On Ramsey-minimal infinite graphs},
  author = {Jordan Mitchell Barrett and Valentino Vito},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2011.14074},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

14 pages, 4 figures. The published version on EJC contains a minor error: in the proof of Lemma 20 on p10, in the last sentence of the last paragraph, it says "The induced subgraph $F := \Gamma[x_1,\ldots,x_n]$". This should read "The subgraph of $\Gamma$ induced by all edges that are incident to at least one of $x_1, \ldots, x_n$", and has been corrected in this arXiv version

R2 v1 2026-06-23T20:34:01.967Z