English

Rational values of the weak saturation limit

Combinatorics 2026-02-10 v2

Abstract

Given a graph FF, a graph GG is weakly FF-saturated if all non-edges of GG can be added in some order so that each new edge introduces a copy of FF. The weak saturation number wsat(n,F)\operatorname{wsat}(n, F) is the minimum number of edges in a weakly FF-saturated graph on nn vertices. Bollob\'as initiated the study of weak saturation in 1968 to study percolation processes, which originated in biology and have applications in physics and computer science. It was shown by Alon that for each FF, there is a constant wFw_F such that wsat(n,F)=wFn+o(n)\operatorname{wsat}(n, F) = w_Fn + o(n). We characterize all possible rational values of wFw_F, proving in particular that wFw_F can equal any rational number at least 32\frac 32.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2501.15686,
  title  = {Rational values of the weak saturation limit},
  author = {Ruben Ascoli and Xiaoyu He},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.15686},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

16 pages, 3 figures. This new version includes a stronger result for each fixed minimum degree, with a simplified proof

R2 v1 2026-06-28T21:18:41.739Z