The hedgehog Ht is a 3-uniform hypergraph on vertices $1, \ldots ,t + \left({\matrix{t \cr 2}}\right)$ such that, for any pair (i, j) with 1 ≤ i < j ≤ t, there exists a unique vertex k > t such that {i, j, k} is an edge. Conlon, Fox and Rödl proved that the two-colour Ramsey number of the hedgehog grows polynomially in the number of its vertices, while the four-colour Ramsey number grows exponentially in the square root of the number of vertices. They asked whether the two-colour Ramsey number of the hedgehog Ht is nearly linear in the number of its vertices. We answer this question affirmatively, proving that r(Ht) = O(t2 ln t).

In an earlier paper, the present authors (2015) introduced the altermatic number of graphs and used Tucker’s lemma, an equivalent combinatorial version of the Borsuk–Ulam theorem, to prove that the altermatic number is a lower bound for chromatic number. A matching Kneser graph is a graph whose vertex set consists of all matchings of a specified size in a host graph and two vertices are adjacent if their corresponding matchings are edge-disjoint. Some well-known families of graphs such as Kneser graphs, Schrijver graphs and permutation graphs can be represented by matching Kneser graphs. In this paper, unifying and generalizing some earlier works by Lovász (1978) and Schrijver (1978), we determine the chromatic number of a large family of matching Kneser graphs by specifying their altermatic number. In particular, we determine the chromatic number of these matching Kneser graphs in terms of the generalized Turán number of matchings.

Given two k-graphs (k-uniform hypergraphs) F and H, a perfect F-tiling (or F-factor) in H is a set of vertex-disjoint copies of F that together cover the vertex set of H. For all complete k-partite k-graphs K, Mycroft proved a minimum codegree condition that guarantees a K-factor in an n-vertex k-graph, which is tight up to an error term o(n). In this paper we improve the error term in Mycroft’s result to a sublinear term that relates to the Turán number of K when the differences of the sizes of the vertex classes of K are co-prime. Furthermore, we find a construction which shows that our improved codegree condition is asymptotically tight in infinitely many cases, thus disproving a conjecture of Mycroft. Finally, we determine exact minimum codegree conditions for tiling K(k)(1, … , 1, 2) and tiling loose cycles, thus generalizing the results of Czygrinow, DeBiasio and Nagle, and of Czygrinow, respectively.

A subset C of edges in a k-uniform hypergraph H is a loose Hamilton cycle if C covers all the vertices of H and there exists a cyclic ordering of these vertices such that the edges in C are segments of that order and such that every two consecutive edges share exactly one vertex. The binomial random k-uniform hypergraph Hkn,p has vertex set [n] and an edge set E obtained by adding each k-tuple e ∈ ($\binom{[n]}{k}$) to E with probability p, independently at random.

Here we consider the problem of finding edge-disjoint loose Hamilton cycles covering all but o(|E|) edges, referred to as the packing problem. While it is known that the threshold probability of the appearance of a loose Hamilton cycle in Hkn,p is

$p=\Theta\biggl(\frac{\log n}{n^{k-1}}\biggr),$

$N:=(1-o(1))\frac{\binom{n}{k}p}{n/(k-1)}$

Our proof utilizes and modifies the idea of ‘online sprinkling’ recently introduced by Vu and the first author.

Let C63 be the 3-uniform hypergraph on {1, . . ., 6} with edges 123,345,561, which can be seen as the analogue of the triangle in 3-uniform hypergraphs. For sufficiently large n divisible by 6, we show that every n-vertex 3-uniform hypergraph H with minimum codegree at least n/3 contains a C63-factor, that is, a spanning subhypergraph consisting of vertex-disjoint copies of C63. The minimum codegree condition is best possible. This improves the asymptotic result obtained by Mycroft and answers a question of Rödl and Ruciński exactly.

Let $\mathcal F$ ⊂ 2[n] be a family of subsets. The diameter of $\mathcal F$ is the maximum of the size of symmetric differences among pairs of members of $\mathcal F$. In 1966 Kleitman determined the maximum of |$\mathcal F$| for fixed diameter. However, this important classical result lacked a characterization of the families meeting the bound. This is remedied in the present paper, where a best possible stability result is established as well.

In Section 4 we introduce a ‘parity trick’ that provides an easy way of deducing the odd case from the even case in both Kleitman's original theorem and its stability version.

In 1990 Bender, Canfield and McKay gave an asymptotic formula for the number of connected graphs on [n] = {1,2,. . .,n} with m edges, whenever n and the nullity m−n+1 tend to infinity. Let Cr(n,t) be the number of connected r-uniform hypergraphs on [n] with nullity t = (r−1)m−n+1, where m is the number of edges. For r ≥ 3, asymptotic formulae for Cr(n,t) are known only for partial ranges of the parameters: in 1997 Karoński and Łuczak gave one for t = o(log n/log log n), and recently Behrisch, Coja-Oghlan and Kang gave one for t=Θ(n). Here we prove such a formula for any fixed r ≥ 3 and any t = t(n) satisfying t = o(n) and t→∞ as n→∞, complementing the last result. This leaves open only the case t/n→∞, which we expect to be much simpler, and will consider in future work. The proof is based on probabilistic methods, and in particular on a bivariate local limit theorem for the number of vertices and edges in the largest component of a certain random hypergraph. We deduce this from the corresponding central limit theorem by smoothing techniques.

How many strict local maxima can a real quadratic function on {0, 1}n have? Holzman conjectured a maximum of $\binom{n }{ \lfloor n/2 \rfloor}$. The aim of this paper is to prove this conjecture. Our approach is via a generalization of Sperner's theorem that may be of independent interest.

Let $\mathcal{F}$ be a family of r-uniform hypergraphs. The chromatic threshold of $\mathcal{F}$ is the infimum of all non-negative reals c such that the subfamily of $\mathcal{F}$ comprising hypergraphs H with minimum degree at least $c \binom{| V(H) |}{r-1}$ has bounded chromatic number. This parameter has a long history for graphs (r = 2), and in this paper we begin its systematic study for hypergraphs.

Łuczak and Thomassé recently proved that the chromatic threshold of the so-called near bipartite graphs is zero, and our main contribution is to generalize this result to r-uniform hypergraphs. For this class of hypergraphs, we also show that the exact Turán number is achieved uniquely by the complete (r + 1)-partite hypergraph with nearly equal part sizes. This is one of very few infinite families of non-degenerate hypergraphs whose Turán number is determined exactly. In an attempt to generalize Thomassen's result that the chromatic threshold of triangle-free graphs is 1/3, we prove bounds for the chromatic threshold of the family of 3-uniform hypergraphs not containing {abc, abd, cde}, the so-called generalized triangle.

In order to prove upper bounds we introduce the concept of fibre bundles, which can be thought of as a hypergraph analogue of directed graphs. This leads to the notion of fibre bundle dimension, a structural property of fibre bundles that is based on the idea of Vapnik–Chervonenkis dimension in hypergraphs. Our lower bounds follow from explicit constructions, many of which use a hypergraph analogue of the Kneser graph. Using methods from extremal set theory, we prove that these Kneser hypergraphs have unbounded chromatic number. This generalizes a result of Szemerédi for graphs and might be of independent interest. Many open problems remain.

Let G be a triangle-free graph with n vertices and average degree t. We show that G contains at least

${\exp\biggl({1-n^{-1/12})\frac{1}{2}\frac{n}{t}\ln t} \biggl(\frac{1}{2}\ln t-1\biggr)\biggr)}$

${e^{(c_1-o(1)) \sqrt{n} \ln n}}$

$c_1 = \sqrt{\ln 2}/4 = 0.208138 \ldots$

${e^{(c_2+o(1))\sqrt{n}\ln n}}$

$c_2 = 2\sqrt{\ln 2} = 1.665109 \ldots$

Let H be a (k+1)-uniform linear hypergraph with n vertices and average degree t. We also show that there exists a constant ck such that the number of independent sets in H is at least

${\exp\biggl({c_{k} \frac{n}{t^{1/k}}\ln^{1+1/k}{t}\biggr})}.$

$\Omega\biggl(\frac{n}{t^{1/k}} \ln^{1/k}t\biggr).$

For d ≥ 2, let Hd(n,p) denote a random d-uniform hypergraph with n vertices in which each of the $\binom{n}{d}$ possible edges is present with probability p=p(n) independently, and let Hd(n,m) denote a uniformly distributed d-uniform hypergraph with n vertices and m edges. Let either H=Hd(n,m) or H=Hd(n,p), where m/n and $\binom{n-1}{d-1}p$ need to be bounded away from (d−1)−1 and 0 respectively. We determine the asymptotic probability that H is connected. This yields the asymptotic number of connected d-uniform hypergraphs with given numbers of vertices and edges. We also derive a local limit theorem for the number of edges in Hd(n,p), conditioned on Hd(n,p) being connected.

Let Hd(n,p) signify a random d-uniform hypergraph with n vertices in which each of the $\binom{n}{d}$ possible edges is present with probability p=p(n) independently, and let Hd(n,m) denote a uniformly distributed d-uniform hypergraph with n vertices and m edges. We derive local limit theorems for the joint distribution of the number of vertices and the number of edges in the largest component of Hd(n,p) and Hd(n,m) in the regime $(d-1)\binom{n-1}{d-1}p>1+\varepsilon$, resp. d(d−1)m/n>1+ϵ, where ϵ>0 is arbitrarily small but fixed as n → ∞. The proofs are based on a purely probabilistic approach.

For k-graphs F0 and H, an F0-packing of H is a family $\mathscr{F}$ of pairwise edge-disjoint copies of F0 in H. Let νF0(H) denote the maximum size |$\mathscr{F}$| of an F0-packing of H. Already in the case of graphs, computing νF0(H) is NP-hard for most fixed F0 (Dor and Tarsi [6]).

In this paper, we consider the case when F0 is a fixed linear k-graph. We establish an algorithm which, for ζ > 0 and a given k-graph H, constructs in time polynomial in |V(H)| an F0-packing of H of size at least νF0(H) − ζ |V(H)|k. Our result extends one of Haxell and Rödl, who established the analogous algorithm for graphs.

In this paper, we prove several new Turán density results for 3-graphs with independent neighbourhoods. We show:

\begin{align*} \pi (K_4^-, C_5, F_{3,2})=12/49, \pi (K_4^-, F_{3,2})=5/18 \textrm {and} \pi (J_4, F_{3,2})=\pi (J_5, F_{3,2})=3/8, \end{align*}

$\binom{|A|}{2}$

\begin{align*} \pi (F_{3,2}, \textrm { induced }K_4^-)=3/8 \textrm {and} \pi (K_5, 5\textrm {-set spanning exactly 8 edges})=3/4. \end{align*}

\begin{align*} \pi (K_4, 4\textrm {-set spanning exactly 1 edge})=5/9. \end{align*}