English

Tur\'{a}n number of books in non-bipartite graphs

Combinatorics 2025-08-19 v1

Abstract

Let ex(n,H)\mathrm{ex}(n, H) be the Tur\'{a}n number of HH for a given graph HH. A graph is color-critical if it contains an edge whose removal reduces its chromatic number. Simonovits' chromatic critical edge theorem states that if HH is color-critical with χ(H)=k+1\chi(H)=k+1, then there exists an n0(H)n_0(H) such that ex(n,H)=e(Tn,k)(n, H)=e(T_{n,k}) and the Tur\'{a}n graph Tn,kT_{n,k} is the only extremal graph provided nn0(H).n\geq n_0(H). A book graph Br+1B_{r+1} is a set of r+1r+1 triangles with a common edge, where r0r\geq0 is an integer. Note that Br+1B_{r+1} is a color-critical graph with χ(Br+1)=3\chi(B_{r+1})=3. Simonovits' theorem implies that Tn,2T_{n,2} is the only extremal graph for Br+1B_{r+1}-free graphs of sufficiently large order nn. Furthermore, Edwards and independently Khad\v{z}iivanov and Nikiforov completely confirmed Erd\H{o}s' booksize conjecture and obtained that ex(n,Br+1)=e(Tn,2)(n, B_{r+1})=e(T_{n,2}) for nn0(Br+1)=6rn\geq n_0(B_{r+1})=6r. Recently, Zhai and Lin [J. Graph Theory 102 (2023) 502-520] investigated the problem of booksize from a spectral perspective. Note that the extremal graph Tn,2T_{n,2} is bipartite. Motivated by the above elegant results, we in this paper focus on the Tur\'{a}n problem of non-bipartite Br+1B_{r+1}-free graphs of order nn. For r=0,r = 0, Erd\H{o}s proved a nice result: If GG is a non-bipartite triangle-free graph on nn vertices, then e(G)(n1)24+1e(G)\leq\big\lfloor\frac{(n-1)^{2}}{4}\big\rfloor+1. For general r1,r\geq1, we determine the exact value of Tur\'{a}n number of Br+1B_{r+1} in non-bipartite graphs and characterize all extremal graphs provided nn is sufficiently large. An interesting phenomenon is that the Tur\'{a}n numbers and extremal graphs are completely different for r=0r=0 and general r1.r\geq1.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2508.12578,
  title  = {Tur\'{a}n number of books in non-bipartite graphs},
  author = {Lu Miao and Ruifang Liu and Edwin R. van Dam},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.12578},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

16 pages, 6 figures