Related papers: Bounds for the quantifier depth in finite-variable…

Let $G$ be a finite or infinite graph and $m(G)$ the minimum number of vertices moved by the non-identity automorphisms of $G$. We are interested in bounds on the supremum $\Delta(G)$ of the degrees of the vertices of $G$ that assure the…

We study first-order logic (FO) over the structure consisting of finite words over some alphabet $A$, together with the (non-contiguous) subword ordering. In terms of decidability of quantifier alternation fragments, this logic is…

In this note we prove that for every integer $k$, there exist constants $g_{1}(k)$ and $g_{2}(k)$ such that the following holds. If $G$ is a graph on $n$ vertices with maximum degree $\Delta$ then it contains an induced subgraph $H$ on at…

Given a rooted tree and a ranking of its leaves, what is the minimum number of inversions of the leaves that can be attained by ordering the tree? This variation of the problem of counting inversions in arrays originated in mathematical…

Let $D$ be a set of positive integers. A $D$-diffsequence of length $k$ is a sequence of positive integers $a_1 < \cdots < a_k$ such that $a_{i+1}-a_i\in D$ for $i=1,\ldots,k-1$. For $D=\{2^i\mid i\in \mathbb{Z}_{\ge 0}\}$, it is known that…

Let $G=(V,E)$ be a graph of density $p$ on $n$ vertices. Following Erd\H{o}s, \L uczak and Spencer, an $m$-vertex subgraph $H$ of $G$ is called {\em full} if $H$ has minimum degree at least $p(m - 1)$. Let $f(G)$ denote the order of a…

Erd\H{o}s and Simonovits asked the following question: For an integer $r\geq 2$ and a family of non-bipartite graphs $\mathcal{H}$, determine the infimum of $\alpha$ such that any $\mathcal{H}$-free $n$-vertex graph with minimum degree at…

We prove that every connected graph with $s$ vertices of degree not 2 has a spanning tree with at least ${1\over 4}(s-2)+2$ leaves. Let $G$ be a be a connected graph of girth $g$ with $v>1$ vertices. Let maximal chain of successively…

Given graphs $H_1, H_2$, a {red, blue}-coloring of the edges of a graph $G$ is a critical coloring if $G$ has neither a red $H_1$ nor a blue $ H_2$. A non-complete graph $G$ is $(H_1, H_2)$-co-critical if $G$ admits a critical coloring, but…

We characterize the languages in the individual levels of the quantifier alternation hierarchy of first-order logic with two variables by identities. This implies decidability of the individual levels. More generally we show that the…

A vertex set $S$ is a generalized $k$-independent set if the induced subgraph $G[S]$ contains no tree on $k$ vertices. The generalized $k$-independence number $\alpha_k(G)$ is the maximum size of such a set. For a tree $T$ with $n$…

Recently there has been considerable interest in studying the length and the depth of finite groups, algebraic groups and Lie groups. In this paper we introduce and study similar notions for algebras. Let $k$ be a field and let $A$ be an…

We study the quantum query complexity of two problems. First, we consider the problem of determining if a sequence of parentheses is a properly balanced one (a Dyck word), with a depth of at most $k$. We call this the $Dyck_{k,n}$ problem.…

The reconfiguration graph $\mathcal{C}_k(G)$ for the $k$-colourings of a graph $G$ has a vertex for each proper $k$-colouring of $G$, and two vertices of $\mathcal{C}_k(G)$ are adjacent precisely when those $k$-colourings differ on a single…

For a given graph $G$, the least integer $k\geq 2$ such that for every Abelian group $\mathcal{G}$ of order $k$ there exists a proper edge labeling $f:E(G)\rightarrow \mathcal{G}$ so that $\sum_{x\in N(u)}f(xu)\neq \sum_{x\in N(v)}f(xv)$…

Let $\alpha'$ and $\mu_i$ denote the matching number of a non-empty simple graph $G$ with $n$ vertices and the $i$-th smallest eigenvalue of its Laplacian matrix, respectively. In this paper, we prove a tight lower bound $$\alpha' \ge…

We introduce the finite-horizon first-order rank profile of a language $L \subseteq \Sigma^*$: the least quantifier rank needed by an $\mathrm{FO}[<]$ sentence to classify membership in $L$ correctly on all words of length at most $n$. The…

In this paper, we address sorting networks that are constructed from comparators of arity $k > 2$. That is, in our setting the arity of the comparators -- or, in other words, the number of inputs that can be sorted at the unit cost -- is a…

Let $\phi(k)$ be the minimum number of vertices in a non-$k$-choosable $k$-chromatic graph. The Ohba conjecture, confirmed by Noel, Reed and Wu, asserts that $\phi(k) \ge 2k+2$. This bound is tight if $k$ is even. If $k$ is odd, then it is…

A variant of the Erd\H{o}s-S\'os conjecture, posed by Havet, Reed, Stein and Wood, states that every graph with minimum degree at least $\lfloor 2k/3 \rfloor$ and maximum degree at least $k$ contains a copy of every tree with $k$ edges.…