Pat Devlin

Classical anti-concentration results focus on the random sum $S := \sum _{i=1}^n \xi_i v_i$, where $\xi_i$ are independent random variables and $v_i$ are real numbers. In this paper, we prove new concentration results concerning the random…

In this paper we study $d$-dependent random graphs -- introduced by Brody and Sanchez -- which are the family of random graph distributions where each edge is present with probability $p$, and each edge is independent of all but at most $d$…

We study the diametric problem (i.e., optimal anticodes) in the space of permutations under the Ulam distance. That is, let $S_n$ denote the set of permutations on $n$ symbols, and for each $\sigma, \tau \in S_n$, define their Ulam distance…

In this note, we investigate combinatorial games where both players move randomly (each turn, independently selecting a legal move uniformly at random). In this model, we provide closed-form expressions for the expected number of turns in a…

The availability of large scale streaming network data has reinforced the ubiquity of power-law distributions in observations and enabled precision measurements of the distribution parameters. The increased accuracy of these measurements…

In this note, we study the emergence of Hamiltonian Berge cycles in random $r$-uniform hypergraphs. For $r\geq 3$, we prove an optimal stopping-time result that if edges are sequently added to an initially empty $r$-graph, then as soon as…

The Explorer-Director game, first introduced by Nedev and Muthukrishnan, can be described as a game where two players -- Explorer and Director -- determine the movement of a token on the vertices of a graph. At each time step, the Explorer…

For natural numbers $x$ and $b$, the classical Kaprekar function is defined as $K_{b} (x) = D-A$, where $D$ is the rearrangement of the base-$b$ digits of $x$ in descending order and $A$ is ascending. The bases $b$ for which $K_b$ has a…

Given a graph $G$ and some initial labelling $\sigma : V(G) \to \{Red, Blue\}$ of its vertices, the \textit{majority dynamics model} is the deterministic process where at each stage, every vertex simultaneously replaces its label with the…

We show that each perfect matching in a bipartite graph $G$ intersects at least half of the perfect matchings in $G$. This result has equivalent formulations in terms of the permanent of the adjacency matrix of a graph, and in terms of…

In this paper, we use the notion of twisted subgroups (i.e., subsets of group elements closed under the binary operation $(a,b) \mapsto aba$) to provide the first structural characterization of optimal play in the Explorer-Director game,…

For a graph property $\mathcal{P}$ and a common vertex set $V = \{1, 2, \ldots, n\}$, a family of graphs on $V$ is \emph{$\mathcal{P}$-intersecting} iff $G \cap H$ satisfies $\mathcal{P}$ for all $G,H$ in the family. Addressing a question…

Given a graph $G$ and $p \in [0,1]$, let $G_p$ denote the random subgraph of $G$ obtained by keeping each edge independently with probability $p$. Alon, Krivelevich, and Sudokov proved $\mathbb{E} [\chi(G_p)] \geq C_p \frac{\chi(G)}{\log…

We give necessary and sufficient conditions under which the Jacobian of a graph is generated by a divisor that is the difference of two vertices. This answers a question posed by Becker and Glass and allows us to prove various other…

Extending the notion of (random) $k$-out graphs, we consider when the $k$-out hypergraph is likely to have a perfect fractional matching. In particular, we show that for each $r$ there is a $k=k(r)$ such that the $k$-out $r$-uniform…

We prove the following conjecture of Leighton and Moitra. Let $T$ be a tournament on $[n]$ and $S_n$ the set of permutations of $[n]$. For an arc $uv$ of $T$, let $A_{uv}=\{\sigma \in S_n \, : \, \sigma(u)<\sigma(v) \}$. $\textbf{Theorem.}$…

We prove a stability version of a general result that bounds the permanent of a matrix in terms of its operator norm. More specifically, suppose $A$ is an $n \times n$ matrix over $\mathbb{C}$ (resp. $\mathbb{R}$), and let $\mathcal{P}$…

Denote by $K_p(n,k)$ the random subgraph of the usual Kneser graph $K(n,k)$ in which edges appear independently, each with probability $p$. Answering a question of Bollob\'as, Narayanan, and Raigorodskii,we show that there is a fixed $p<1$…