Ramsey Problems for Berge Hypergraphs

Abstract

For a graph G, a hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$ is a Berge copy of G (or a Berge-G in short) if there is a bijection $f : E(G) \rightarrow E(\mathcal{H})$ such that for each $e \in E(G)$ we have $e \subseteq f(e)$. We denote the family of r-uniform hypergraphs that are Berge copies of G by $B^rG$. For families of r-uniform hypergraphs $\mathbf{H}$ and $\mathbf{H}'$, we denote by $R(\mathbf{H},\mathbf{H}')$ the smallest number n such that in any red-blue coloring of the (hyper)edges of $\mathcal{K}_n^r$ (the complete r-uniform hypergraph on n vertices) there is a monochromatic blue copy of a hypergraph in $\mathbf{H}$ or a monochromatic red copy of a hypergraph in $\mathbf{H}'$. $R^c(\mathbf{H})$ denotes the smallest number n such that in any coloring of the hyperedges of $\mathcal{K}_n^r$ with c colors, there is a monochromatic copy of a hypergraph in $\mathbf{H}$. In this paper we initiate the general study of the Ramsey problem for Berge hypergraphs, and show that if $r> 2c$, then $R^c(B^rK_n)=n$. In the case r = 2c, we show that $R^c(B^rK_n)=n+1$, and if G is a noncomplete graph on n vertices, then $R^c(B^rG)=n$, assuming n is large enough. In the case $r < 2c$ we also obtain bounds on $R^c(B^rK_n)$. Moreover, we also determine the exact value of $R(B^3T_1,B^3T_2)$ for every pair of trees T_1 and T_2.