On small balanceable, strongly-balanceable and omnitonal graphs

Abstract

In Ramsey theory for graphs we are given a graph G and we are required to find the least n0 such that, for any n ≥ n0, any red/blue colouring of the edges of Kn gives a subgraph G all of whose edges are blue or all are red. Here we shall be requiring that, for any red/blue colouring of the edges of Kn, there must be a copy of G such that its edges are partitioned equally as red or blue (or the sizes of the colour classes differs by one in the case when G has an odd number of edges). This introduces the notion of balanceable graphs and the balance number of G which, if it exists, is the minimum integer bal(n, G) such that, for any red/blue colouring of E(Kn) with more than bal(n, G) edges of either colour, Kn will contain a balanced coloured copy of G as described above. This parameter was introduced by Caro, Hansberg and Montejano in [6]. There, the authors also introduce the strong balance number sbal(n, G) and the more general omnitonal number ot(n, G) which requires copies of G containing a complete distribution of the number of red and blue edges over E(G). In this paper we shall catalogue bal(n, G), sbal(n, G) and ot(n, G) for all graphs G on at most four edges. We shall be using some of the key results of Caro et al, which we here reproduce in full, as well as some new results which we prove here. For example, we shall prove that the union of two bipartite graphs with the same number of edges is always balanceable.