组合数学

We revisit the classical Unit Distance Problem posed by Erd\H{o}s in 1946. While the upper bound of $O(n^{4/3})$ established by Spencer, Szemer'edi, and Trotter (1984) is tight for systems of pseudo-circles, it fails to account for the…

For an integer $r\geqslant 3$, a hypergraph on vertex set $[n]$ is $r$-uniform if each edge is a set of $r$ vertices, and is said to be linear if every two distinct edges share at most one vertex. Given a family $\mathcal{H}$ of linear…

We derive exact values and new bounds for the Shannon capacity of two families of graphs: the $q$-Kneser graphs and the tadpole graphs. We also construct a countably infinite family of connected graphs whose Shannon capacity is not attained…

Jordan schemes generalize association schemes in a similar way as Jordan algebras generalize the associative ones. It is well-known that association schemes of maximal rank are in one-to-one correspondence with groups (so-called thin…

We ask the question, which oriented trees $T$ must be contained as subgraphs in every finite directed graph of sufficiently large minimum out-degree. We formulate the following simple condition: all vertices in $T$ of in-degree at least $2$…

Let $\mathcal{C}$ be a positive integer cone and $k\in \mathcal{C}$. A $\mathcal{C}$-semigroup $S$ is $k$-positioned if for every $h\in \mathcal{C}\setminus S$ we have that $k-h$ belongs to $S$. In this work, we focus on this family of…

The elements of a finite field of prime order canonically correspond to the integers in an interval. This induces an ordering on the elements of the field. Using this ordering, Kiss and Somlai recently proved interesting properties of the…

In this paper, we tie together two well studied topics related to finite Desarguesian affine and projective planes. The first topic concerns directions determined by a set, or even a multiset, of points in an affine plane. The second topic…

We provide a unified method to study the adjacency matrices of regular graphs (including infinite ones) using holomorphic functional calculus. By applying this calculus on a specific ellipse that contains the spectrum, we derive an…

We characterise the minimum weight codewords of the $p$-ary linear code of intersecting lines in ${\rm PG}(3,q)$, $q=p^h$, $q\geq19$, $p$ prime, $h\geq 1$. If $q$ is even, the minimum weight equals $q^3+q^2+q+1$. If $q$ is odd, the minimum…

In this paper, we study association schemes on the anisotropic points of classical polar spaces. Our main result concerns non-degenerate elliptic and hyperbolic quadrics in PG$(n,q)$ with $q$ odd. We define relations on the anisotropic…

Consider the following Maker-Breaker game. Fix a finite subset $S\subset\mathbb{N}$ of the naturals. The players Maker and Breaker take turns choosing previously unclaimed natural numbers. Maker wins by eventually building a homothetic copy…

The height $H(n)$ of $n$ is the least integer $i$ such that the $i$-th iterate of Euler's totient function $\varphi^{(i)}(n)$ equals $1$. H. N. Shapiro showed that this $H$ is almost completely additive. Building on the fact that this…

In this paper, we study the codes $\mathcal C_k(n,q)$ arising from the incidence of points and $k$-spaces in $\text{PG}(n,q)$ over the field $\mathbb F_p$, with $q = p^h$, $p$ prime. We classify all codewords of minimum weight of the dual…

Recently, a lower bound was established on the size of linear sets in projective spaces, that intersect a hyperplane in a canonical subgeometry. There are several constructions showing that this bound is tight. In this paper, we generalize…

A set of edges $\Gamma$ of a graph $G$ is an edge dominating set if every edge of $G$ intersects at least one edge of $\Gamma$, and the edge domination number $\gamma_e(G)$ is the smallest size of an edge dominating set. Expanding on work…

This paper mainly focuses on cones whose basis is a maximum $h$-scattered linear set. We start by investigating the intersection sizes of such cones with the hyperplanes. Then we analyze two constructions of point sets with few intersection…

A balanced colouring of a graph is one in which every colour appears the same number of times. Given a fixed graph $H$ on $r$ vertices and a balanced $k$-colouring of the complete graph $K_{nrk}$, Hollom (2025) asked the following question:…

We show that for all integers $2\le s\le t$, any $K_{s,t}$-free subset of $[N]$ with size $\Omega(n^{1-1/s})$ must contain a nontrivial solution to every fixed translation-invariant linear equation in at least five variables. This extends…

In this paper, we study various classes of partition functions such as those related to the parity of the number of parts, to differences of partition numbers, and to partitions with a repeated smallest part. We establish identities…