English

Constrained Ramsey numbers for rainbow $P_5$

Combinatorics 2025-11-07 v2

Abstract

Given a graph HH and a positive integer kk, the {\it kk-colored Ramsey number} Rk(H)R_k(H) is the minimum integer nn such that in every kk-edge-coloring of the complete graph KnK_{n}, there is a monochromatic copy of HH. Given two graphs HH and GG, the {\it constrained Ramsey number} (also called {\it rainbow Ramsey number}) f(H,G)f(H,G) is defined as the minimum integer nn such that, in every edge-coloring of KnK_{n} with any number of colors, there is either a monochromatic copy of HH or a rainbow copy of GG. Let PtP_t be the path on tt vertices. Gy\'{a}rf\'{a}s, Lehel and Schelp proved that f(H,P5)=R3(H)f(H,P_5)=R_3(H) when HH is a path or a cycle. Li, Besse, Magnant, Wang and Watts conjectured that f(H,P5)=R3(H)f(H,P_5)=R_3(H) for any graph HH, and confirmed this for all connected graphs and all bipartite graphs. In this paper, we address this conjecture for multiple classes of disconnected graphs with chromatic number at least 3. Our newly established general results encompass all known results on this problem. We also obtain several results for a bipartite variation of the problem. In addition, we propose a series of questions concerning this problem from multiple distinct aspects for further research.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.18243,
  title  = {Constrained Ramsey numbers for rainbow $P_5$},
  author = {Xihe Li and Xiangxiang Liu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.18243},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

32 pages

R2 v1 2026-07-01T06:56:59.080Z