Related papers: Large independent sets from local considerations
An independent transversal in a multipartite graph is an independent set that intersects each part in exactly one vertex. We show that for every even integer $r\ge 2$, there exist $c_r>0$ and $n_0$ such that every $r$-partite graph with…
The independence number of a sparse random graph G(n,m) of average degree d=2m/n is well-known to be \alpha(G(n,m))~2n ln(d)/d with high probability. Moreover, a trivial greedy algorithm w.h.p. finds an independent set of size (1+o(1)) n…
Several discrete geometry problems are equivalent to estimating the size of the largest homogeneous sets in graphs that happen to be the union of few comparability graphs. An important observation for such results is that if $G$ is an…
Given a graph $G$ and an integer $\ell\ge 2$, we denote by $\alpha_{\ell}(G)$ the maximum size of a $K_{\ell}$-free subset of vertices in $V(G)$. A recent question of Nenadov and Pehova asks for determining the best possible minimum degree…
We study the algorithmic problem of finding a large independent set in the Erd{\"o}s-R\'{e}nyi random graph $G(n,p)$. For constant $p$ and $b=1/(1-p)$, the largest independent set has size $2\log_b n$, while a simple greedy algorithm -…
In 1994, Erd\H{o}s, Gy\'{a}rf\'{a}s and {\L}uczak posed the following problem: given disjoint vertex sets $V_1,\dots,V_n$ of size~$k$, with exactly one edge between any pair $V_i,V_j$, how large can $n$ be such that there will always be an…
The Independent Cutset problem asks whether there is a set of vertices in a given graph that is both independent and a cutset. Such a problem is $\textsf{NP}$-complete even when the input graph is planar and has maximum degree five. In this…
For a positive integer $r$, a distance-$r$ independent set in an undirected graph $G$ is a set $I\subseteq V(G)$ of vertices pairwise at distance greater than $r$, while a distance-$r$ dominating set is a set $D\subseteq V(G)$ such that…
The inducibility of a graph $H$ measures the maximum number of induced copies of $H$ a large graph $G$ can have. Generalizing this notion, we study how many induced subgraphs of fixed order $k$ and size $\ell$ a large graph $G$ on $n$…
Let $mH$ be the graph formed by $m$ vertex-disjoint copies of a graph $H$. Let $G \to (H)_r$ denote that, in any $r$-colouring of the edges of $G$, there exists a monochromatic copy of $H$. In 1975, Burr, Erd\H{o}s, and Spencer showed that…
We consider a relaxation of the concept of well-covered graphs, which are graphs with all maximal independent sets of the same size. The extent to which a graph fails to be well-covered can be measured by its independence gap, defined as…
Recently, Davies, Jenssen, Perkins, and Roberts gave a very nice proof of the result (due, in various parts, to Kahn, Galvin-Tetali, and Zhao) that the independence polynomial of a $d$-regular graph is maximized by disjoint copies of…
Recently, settling a question of Erd\H{o}s, Balogh and Pet\v{r}\'{i}\v{c}kov\'{a} showed that there are at most $2^{n^2/8+o(n^2)}$ $n$-vertex maximal triangle-free graphs, matching the previously known lower bound. Here we characterize the…
For $k\ge 1$, the $k$-independence number $\alpha_k$ of a graph is the maximum number of vertices that are mutually at distance greater than $k$. The well-known inertia and ratio bounds for the (1-)independence number $\alpha(=\alpha_1)$ of…
We consider the following problem posed by Erdos in 1962. Suppose that $G$ is an $n$-vertex graph where the number of $s$-cliques in $G$ is $t$. How small can the independence number of $G$ be? Our main result suggests that for fixed $s$,…
An independent transversal of a graph $G$ with a vertex partition $\mathcal P$ is an independent set of $G$ intersecting each block of $\mathcal P$ in a single vertex. Wanless and Wood proved that if each block of $\mathcal P$ has size at…
The \emph{regular independence number}, introduced by Albertson and Boutin in 1990, is the maximum cardinality of an independent set of $G$ in which all vertices have equal degree in $G$. Recently, Caro, Hansberg and Pepper introduced the…
The well-known Erd\H{o}s-Hajnal conjecture states that for any graph $F$, there exists $\epsilon>0$ such that every $n$-vertex graph $G$ that contains no induced copy of $F$ has a homogeneous set of size at least $n^{\epsilon}$. We consider…
Let $G$ be a simple graph with vertex set $V(G)$. A set $S\subseteq V(G)$ is independent if no two vertices from $S$ are adjacent. For $X\subseteq V(G)$, the difference of $X$ is $d(X) = |X|-|N(X)|$ and an independent set $A$ is critical if…
For a graph $G=(V,E)$, let $bc(G)$ denote the minimum number of pairwise edge disjoint complete bipartite subgraphs of $G$ so that each edge of $G$ belongs to exactly one of them. It is easy to see that for every graph $G$, $bc(G) \leq n…