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Lovasz 1983 number complete subgraphs graph ii

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theorem_1: Lovász and Simonovits's form of Goodman's bound: for p >= 3, every graph with n vertices and E = (1 - 1/t)n^2/2 edges, E at least Turán's number m(n,p), contains at least binom(t,p)(n/t)^p copies of K_p.

theorem_2: Lovász and Simonovits's stability theorem: for k below δn^2, a graph whose number of K_p's exceeds the Goodman-type bound by at most Ckn^(p-2) arises from a complete d-partite graph with classes n/d + O(sqrt k) by adding and deleting fewer than C'k edges.

theorem_3: Lovász and Simonovits's main structure theorem: just above a Turán number, every graph with n vertices and E edges having the fewest K_p's is a complete d-partite graph plus new edges, forming no triangles, inside one class (p at least 4), or of one of two related forms (p = 3).

theorem_4: The extremal structure for edge counts just above the Turán number, which at p = 3 gives at least k·floor(n/2) triangles in every graph with floor(n²/4)+k edges and k below floor(n/2), the Erdős-Rademacher conjecture, under the chapter's convention that n is large.


L. Lovász and M. Simonovits, On the number of complete subgraphs of a graph II, Studies in Pure Mathematics: To the Memory of Paul Turán, Birkhäuser, Basel (1983), 459--495; doi:10.1007/978-3-0348-5438-2_41 (Crossref record read, which lists the chapter as a book chapter with no issue date beyond the year). The sequel to the authors' Aberdeen 1975 paper (Proc. Fifth British Combinatorial Conference, Congressus Numerantium XV (1976), 431--441 per zbMATH, Zbl 0339.05115; the site's key LoSi76, not held), which this chapter cites as its reference [5] with pages 431--442. Not a reference key of the site; the discussion thread of Problem 1010 names it as [LoSi83].

Edition read. The copy read for this card is the scan LovSimBirk.pdf on the second author's page at the Rényi Institute: 37 pages, an image scan with an OCR text layer that garbles the displays; the running heads print 460 to 495 and the first page carries the volume title, so printed p. nn is PDF p. n−458n-458. Provenance: retrieved from https://www.renyi.hu/~miki/LovSimBirk.pdf on 2026-09-18; 2,211,737 bytes. That scan of the printed chapter on the second author's page (https://www.renyi.hu/~miki/LovSimBirk.pdf) states no terms; the publisher's chapter page states "© 1983 Springer Basel AG", names Birkhäuser, Basel, as publisher and carries no Creative Commons or open-access statement (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-0348-5438-2_41), every other right reserved.

Read status: claims checked for the abstract (printed p. 459 = PDF p. 1), Theorem A, Problem 3, Remark 1 and the paragraph attributing the p=3p=3 case to [5] (p. 460 = PDF p. 2), the convention on pp, dd and nn and Theorems 1--2 as statements (p. 461 = PDF p. 3), Definitions 1--2 and Theorem 3 (p. 462 = PDF p. 4), the Conjecture and Theorem 4 (p. 463 = PDF p. 5) and the first sentence of p. 464 (PDF p. 6), read clause by clause on the page images on 2026-09-18; the derivation of Theorem 4 from Theorem 3 (p. 463) was read for structure. On 2026-10-08 the statements above were checked again on the page images, and the rest of Section 1 (pp. 464--465), Sections 2--4 (pp. 465--470, the preliminaries and the proofs of Theorems 1--2) and the opening of Section 5 (p. 471, step (A) and the start of step (B)) were read for structure; the rest of the proof of Theorem 3 (pp. 471--495 = PDF pp. 13--37, ending "The proof of Theorem 3 is complete") was not read, its extent located by its section heading on the page images; the reference list (p. 495) was read on the page image. Theorems 1--4 are paged at theorem_1, theorem_2, theorem_3 and theorem_4.

Contents

  • Abstract (p. 459): bounds from below on kp(G)k_p(G), the count of complete pp-graphs, as a function of the vertex and edge counts; a full description of the extremal graphs for some pairs (n,E)(n,E); and: "Our results contain the proof of the longstanding conjecture of P. Erdős that a graph GnG^n with [n2/4]+k[n^2/4]+k edges contains at least k[n/2]k[n/2] triangles if k<n/2k<n/2."
  • Pp. 459--460, the opening of Section 1 (the introduction, which runs to p. 465): fp(n,E)=min⁡{kp(G):e(G)=E, v(G)=n}f_p(n,E)=\min\{k_p(G):e(G)=E,\ v(G)=n\}; Problem 1 (determine fpf_p), Problem 2 (characterize the extremal graphs); Turán's m(n,p)m(n,p) with Tn,p−1T^{n,p-1} the unique KpK_p-free graph with m(n,p)m(n,p) edges; Rademacher's unpublished result; Theorem A (Erdős): UknU_k^n, the Turán graph with kk edges added inside a largest class forming no triangles if this is possible, is extremal for k<cpnk<c_pn; Problem 3 (Erdős): how large can cpc_p be; Remark 1: not beyond 1/(p−1)1/(p-1); "This paper contains an improvement of Theorem A (see Theorem 4 below) which yields that in Problem 3 the answer is c=1/(p−1)c=1/(p-1). For p=3p=3 the proof of this was given in [5]" (p. 460).
  • P. 461: the convention "The numbers pp and dd will be considered fixed and nn large relative to them"; Theorem 1 (Goodman's bound generalized, kp(G)≥(tp)(n/t)pk_p(G)\ge\binom tp(n/t)^p where E=(1−1/t)n2/2E=(1-1/t)n^2/2); Theorem 2 (a stability theorem: few KpK_p's force a graph close to a complete dd-partite graph); Remarks 2--3.
  • P. 462: the classes U0(n,E)U_0(n,E), U1(n,E)U_1(n,E), U2(n,E)U_2(n,E); Theorem 3: for some δ=δ(p,d)>0\delta=\delta(p,d)>0 and all 0≤k<δn20\le k<\delta n^2, every extremal graph is in U1U_1 if p≥4p\ge4 and in U0∪U2U_0\cup U_2 if p=3p=3, with at least one extremal graph in U1U_1; Propositions 1--3 on the structure of extremal graphs.
  • P. 463: the Conjecture, "For every nn and EE (n≥n0(p)n\ge n_0(p)) there is an extremal graph in U1(n,E)U_1(n,E)"; the derivation, "assuming Theorem 3", of Theorem 4 (paged): for E=m(n,p−1)+kE=m(n,p-1)+k and k<[n/(p−1)]k<[n/(p-1)] the extremal graph is the Turán graph with kk edges added to a largest class (the only one for p>3p>3, one possible one for p=3p=3).
  • Pp. 464--495: "Theorem 4 is clearly a sharpening of Erdős's Theorem 1"; the asymptotic f(x)f(x) for E≈x(n2)E\approx x\binom n2 and the function g(x)g(x) with Figure 1 (pp. 464--465, read); the proofs of Theorems 1 and 2 (Sections 2--4, pp. 465--470, read for structure) and of Theorem 3 (Section 5, pp. 471--495, read only through the start of step (B) on p. 471).
  • P. 495: references [1]--[7], among them [2] Erdős, On a theorem of Rademacher-Turán, Illinois J. Math. 6 (1962), 122--127, and [5] the Aberdeen paper.

Compiled scope

PDF pp. 1--13 and 37 were read on the page images; the text layer was used only to locate the statements. The proofs of Theorems 1--2 were read for structure only, the 25-page proof of Theorem 3 (Section 5, pp. 471--495) is not read beyond its first page, and nothing here is independently reviewed. One notational point is recorded on the theorem page: Theorem A and Theorem 4 write the Turán edge count as m(n,p−1)m(n,p-1) while p. 460 defines m(n,p)m(n,p) as the number of edges of Tn,p−1T^{n,p-1}; the abstract's [n2/4]+k[n^2/4]+k fixes the reading for p=3p=3.

Bears on. #1010: the abstract (p. 459) says the results contain the proof of Erdős's conjecture that a graph with [n2/4]+k[n^2/4]+k edges has at least k[n/2]k[n/2] triangles if k<n/2k<n/2; Theorem 4 (p. 463), derived "assuming Theorem 3", gives at p=3p=3 the extremal structure for k<[n/2]k<[n/2], from which the problem's bound for t<⌊n/2⌋t<\lfloor n/2\rfloor follows by a count made on the theorem page, for nn large under the chapter's convention and with no explicit threshold. The chapter attributes the p=3p=3 case to the Aberdeen paper, the site's source, and is the paper the problem's discussion thread names; paged at theorem_4, with the chain behind it at theorem_3.

No file of this source is held: no license on record permits its redistribution, and the card cites the edition it names above.