On the Size-Ramsey Number of Cycles

Abstract

AbstractFor given graphs G1,…, Gk, the size-Ramsey number $\hat R({G_1}, \ldots ,{G_k})$ is the smallest integer m for which there exists a graph H on m edges such that in every k-edge colouring of H with colours 1,…,k, H contains a monochromatic copy of Gi of colour i for some 1 ≤ i ≤ k. We denote $\hat R({G_1}, \ldots ,{G_k})$ by ${\hat R_k}(G)$ when G1 = ⋯ = Gk = G.Haxell, Kohayakawa and Łuczak showed that the size-Ramsey number of a cycle Cn is linear in n, ${\hat R_k}({C_n}) \le {c_k}n$ for some constant ck. Their proof, however, is based on Szemerédi’s regularity lemma so no specific constant ck is known.In this paper, we give various upper bounds for the size-Ramsey numbers of cycles. We provide an alternative proof of ${\hat R_k}({C_n}) \le {c_k}n$ , avoiding use of the regularity lemma, where ck is exponential and doubly exponential in k, when n is even and odd, respectively. In particular, we show that for sufficiently large n we have ${\hat R_2}({C_n}) \le {10^5} \times cn$ , where c = 6.5 if n is even and c = 1989 otherwise.