CanaDAM 2011 University of Victoria, May 31 - June 3, 2011 www.cms.math.ca//2011

Extremal Graph Theory
Org: Penny Haxell (University of Waterloo)
[PDF]

M. DEVOS, Simon Fraser University
Edge Expansion  [PDF]

Given a simple connected regular graph $G$, we are interested in finding good lower bounds on the number of edges in the graph $G^k$. I will discuss tight bounds for the average degree of $G^3$ and $G^4$, and an essentially tight bound for $G^k$ when $k$ is congruent to 2 modulo 3. This represents joint work with Stephan Thomasse and with Jessica McDonald and Diego Scheide.

A. KOSTOCHKA, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Packing hypergraphs with few edges  [PDF]

Two $n$-vertex hypergraphs $G$~and $H$ pack~if there is~a bijection $f\,:\,V(G)\to~V(H)$ such that for every edge $A\in~E(G)$, $f(A)$ is not an edge. Our result: If $n\geq10$ and two $n$-vertex hypergraphs $G$ and $H$ with no $1$-,$(n-1)$-, and $n$-edges satisfy $|E(G)|\leq|E(H)|$ and $|E(G)|+|E(H)|\leq2n-3$, then $G$~and~$H$ fail to~pack if and only if every vertex of $G$ is incident to a $2$-edge, and $H$ has~a~vertex incident to~$n-1\quad$ $2$-edges. The~result generalizes Bollob\'{a}s--Eldridge Theorem. This~is joint work~with C.~Stocker and P.~Hamburger.

D. MUBAYI, University of Illinois at Chicago
Lower bounds for the independence number of hypergraphs  [PDF]

We use probabilistic methods to improve the known lower bounds for the independence number of locally sparse graphs and hypergraphs. As a consequence, we answer some old questions of Caro and Tuza. This is joint work with K. Dutta and C.R. Subramanian.

O. PIKHURKO, Carnegie Mellon University
Turan function of even cycles  [PDF]

The Turan function $ex(n,F)$ is the maximum number of edges in an $F$-free graph on $n$ vertices. Let $C_{k}$ denote the cycle of length $k$. We prove that if $k$ is fixed and $n$ tends to infinity, then $ex(n,C_{2k})\le (k-1-o(1))\, n^{1+1/k}$, improving the previously best known general upper bound of Verstraete (2000) by a factor $8+o(1)$ when $n\gg k$.

J. VERSTRAETE, University of California San Diego
Recent progress on bipartite Turan numbers  [PDF]

For a family ${\cal F}$ of graphs, the Tur\'an number ex$(n,{\cal F})$ is the maximum number of edges in an $n$-vertex graph that has no graph in ${\cal F}$ as a subgraph. Determining ex$(n,{\cal F})$ when ${\cal F}$ contains a bipartite graph is a notoriously difficult problem. We discuss recent progress on several conjectures of Erd\H os and Simonovits from 1982 about bipartite Tur\'an numbers. (Partly joint with Peter Keevash and Benny Sudakov.)

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