Search arXiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 2508.18270

Proving it is impossible; on Erdős problem $\# 278$

Stijn Cambie
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Erdős and Graham asked for the minimum density missed by one chosen residue class for each of a prescribed collection of moduli. We give exact expressions for natural structured families and relate one of them to hard balanced-partition instances. For binary-encoded lists of moduli, allowing repetitions, even deciding whether the minimum is zero is NP-hard.

Explore related subjects

math.CO

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Stijn Cambie. 2026-08-17. Proving it is impossible; on Erdős problem $\# 278$. https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.18270

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Matching Complexes of Outerplanar Graphs

An outerplanar graph is a planar graph that has a planar drawing with all vertices on the unbounded face. The matching complex of a graph is the simplicial complex whose faces are subsets of disjoint edges of the graph. In this paper we prove that the matching complexes of outerplanar graphs are contractible or homotopy equivalent to a wedge of spheres. This extends known results about trees and polygonal line tilings.

math.CO↗
arXiv2026

Awesome graph parameters

For a graph $G$, we denote by $α(G)$ the size of a maximum independent set and by $ω(G)$ the size of a maximum clique in $G$. Our paper lies on the edge of two lines of research, related to $α$ and $ω$, respectively. One of them studies $α$-variants of graph parameters, such as $α$-treewidth or $α$-degeneracy. The second line deals with graph classes where some parameters are bounded by a function of $ω(G)$. A famous example of this type is the family of $χ$-bounded classes, where the chromatic number $χ(G)$ is bounded by a function of $ω(G)$. A Ramsey-type argument implies that if the $α$-variant of a graph parameter $ρ$ is bounded by a constant in a hereditary class $\mathcal{G}$, then $ρ$ is bounded by a function of $ω$ in $\mathcal{G}$. If the reverse implication also holds, we say that $ρ$ is awesome. Otherwise, we say that $ρ$ is awful. In the present paper, we identify a number of awesome and awful graph parameters, derive some algorithmic applications of awesomeness, and propose a number of open problems related to these notions.

math.CO↗
arXiv2026

Perfect matchings and $A_α$-spectral radius in 1-binding graphs

Let $G$ be a graph with vertex set $V(G)$ and edge set $E(G)$. For $α\in[0,1)$, we use $A_α(G)$ and $ρ_α(G)$ to denote the $A_α$-matrix and the $A_α$-spectral radius of $G$, respectively. The binding number $\mbox{bind}(G)$ of $G$ is defined by $\mbox{bind}(G)=\min\left\{\frac{|N_G(X)|}{|X|}:\emptyset\neq X\subseteq V(G),N_G(X)\neq V(G)\right\}$. If $\mbox{bind}(G)\geq1$, then $G$ is called 1-binding. A perfect matching in $G$ is a set of nonadjacent edges covering every vertex of $G$. Tutte proved that a graph $G$ of even order has a perfect matching if and only if $o(G-S)\leq|S|$ holds for every $S\subseteq V(G)$ [W. Tutte, The factorization of linear graphs, J. Lond. Math. Soc. 22 (1947) 107--111]. In this paper, we use Tutte's result to prove that a connected 1-binding graph $G$ of even order $n$ with $n\geq n(α)$ has a perfect matching unless $G=K_1\vee(K_{n-5}\cup K_3\cup K_1)$ if $ρ_α(G)\geqρ_α(K_1\vee(K_{n-5}\cup K_3\cup K_1))$, where $n(α)$ is defined as follows: $n(α)=\max\{18,\frac{2+8α}{1-2α}\}$ if $α\in[0,\frac{1}{2})$, and $n(α)=18$ if $α=\frac{1}{2}$.

math.CO↗