English

Minimal H-factors and covers

Combinatorics 2025-02-19 v1 Probability

Abstract

Given a fixed small graph H and a larger graph G, an H-factor is a collection of vertex-disjoint subgraphs HGH'\subset G, each isomorphic to H, that cover the vertices of G. If G is the complete graph KnK_n equipped with independent U(0,1) edge weights, what is the lowest total weight of an H-factor? This problem has previously been considered for e.g.\ H=K2H=K_2. We show that if H contains a cycle, then the minimum weight is sharply concentrated around some Ln=Θ(n11/d)L_n = \Theta(n^{1-1/d^*}) (where dd^* is the maximum 1-density of any subgraph of H). Some of our results also hold for H-covers, where the copies of H are not required to be vertex-disjoint.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2302.12184,
  title  = {Minimal H-factors and covers},
  author = {Lorenzo Federico and Joel Larsson Danielsson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2302.12184},
  year   = {2025}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T08:48:09.674Z