English

Relative Tur\'an densities for ordered graphs: all and nothing

Combinatorics 2025-11-27 v1

Abstract

Reiher, R\"odl, Sales, and Schacht initiated the study of relative Tur\'an densities of ordered graphs and showed that it is more subtle and interesting than the unordered case. For an ordered graph FF, its relative Tur\'an density, ρ<(F)\rho_{<}(F), is the greatest α\alpha such that every ordered graph GG has an FF-free subgraph with at least αe(G)\alpha e(G) edges. This paper contains two main results about relative Tur\'an densities. First, we find a family of host graphs that is optimal for all FF. Second, we characterise the ordered graphs with zero relative Tur\'an density: precisely those with no monotone path of length two.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2511.21571,
  title  = {Relative Tur\'an densities for ordered graphs: all and nothing},
  author = {Freddie Illingworth and Arjun Ranganathan and Leo Versteegen and Ella Williams},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.21571},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

21 pages including appendix; 2 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T07:56:33.973Z