Saturation of 0-1 Matrices
Abstract
A 0-1 matrix contains a 0-1 matrix if has a submatrix which can be turned into by changing some of the ones to zeroes. Matrix is -saturated if does not contain , but any matrix derived from by changing a zero to a one must contain . The saturation function is defined as the minimum number of ones of an -saturated 0-1 matrix. Fulek and Keszegh showed that each pattern has or . This leads to the natural problem of classifying forbidden 0-1 matrices according to whether they have linear or bounded saturation functions. Some progress has been made on this problem: multiple infinite families of matrices with bounded saturation function and other families with linear saturation function have been identified. We answer this question for all patterns with at most four ones, as well as several specific patterns with more ones, including multiple new infinite families. We also consider the effects of certain matrix operations, including the Kronecker product and insertion of empty rows and columns. Additionally, we consider the simpler case of fixing one dimension, extending results of (Fulek and Keszegh, 2021) and (Berendsohn, 2021). We also generalize some results to -dimensional saturation.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2503.03193,
title = {Saturation of 0-1 Matrices},
author = {Andrew Brahms and Alan Duan and Jesse Geneson and Jacob Greene},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.03193},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
41 pages, 1 figure