Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

Hadwiger's conjecture from 1943 states that every graph with no $K_t$ minor is $(t-1)$-colorable for every $t\ge 1$. In the early 1980s, Kostochka and Thomason independently proved that every graph with no $K_t$ minor has average degree $O(t\sqrt{\log t})$ and hence is $O(t\sqrt{\log t})$-colorable.  In this talk, we show that every graph with no $K_t$ minor is $O(t(\log t)^{\beta})$-colorable for every $\beta > 1/4$, making the first improvement on the order of magnitude of the Kostochka-Thomason bound. 

This is joint work with  Sergey Norin and Luke Postle.

A graph G is F-saturated if G is F-free and G+e is not F-free for any edge not in G. The saturation number of F, is the minimum number of edges in an n-vertex F-saturated graph. We consider analogues of this problem in other settings.  In particular we prove saturation versions of some Ramsey-type theorems on graphs and Dilworth-type theorems on posets. We also consider semisaturation problems, wherein we only require that any extension of the combinatorial structure creates new copies of the forbidden configuration.  In this setting, we prove a semisaturation version of the Erdös-Szekeres theorem on convex k-gons, as well as multiple semisaturation theorems for sequences and posets. Joint work with Gábor Damásdi, Balázs Keszegh, David Malec, Casey Tompkins, and Oscar Zamora.

An edge-colored graph $G$ is called \textit{rainbow} if every edge of $G$ receives a different color. The \textit{anti-Ramsey} number of $t$ edge-disjoint rainbow spanning trees, denoted by $r(n,t)$, is defined as the maximum number of colors in an edge-coloring of $K_n$ containing no $t$ edge-disjoint rainbow spanning trees. Jahanbekam and West [{\em J. Graph Theory, 2016}] conjectured that for any fixed $t$, $r(n,t)=\binom{n-2}{2}+t$ whenever $n\geq 2t+2 \geq 6$. We show their conjecture is true and also determine $r(n,t)$ when $n = 2t+1$. Together with previous results, this gives the anti-Ramsey number of $t$ edge-disjoint rainbow spanning trees for all values of $n$ and $t$. Joint work with Linyuan Lu.

A combinatorial structure is said to be quasirandom if it resembles a random structure in a certain robust sense. For example, it is well-known that a graph G with edge-density p is quasirandom if and only if the density of C_4 in G is p^4+o(p^4); this property is known to equivalent to several other properties that hold for truly random graphs.  A similar phenomenon was established for permutations: a permutation is quasirandom if and only if the density of every 4-point pattern (subpermutation) is 1/4!+o(1).  We strengthen this result by showing that a permutation is quasirandom if and only if the sum of the densities of eight specific 4-point patterns is 1/3+o(1). More generally, we classify all sets of 4-point patterns having such property.

The talk is based on joint work with Timothy F. N. Chan, Jonathan A. Noel, Yanitsa Pehova, Maryam Sharifzadeh and Jan Volec.