An ordered hypergraph is a hypergraph whose vertex set is linearly ordered, and a convex geometric hypergraph is a hypergraph whose vertex set is cyclically ordered. Extremal problems for ordered and convex geometric graphs have a rich history with applications to a variety of problems in combinatorial geometry. In this paper, we consider analogous extremal problems for uniform hypergraphs, and determine the order of magnitude of the extremal function for various ordered and convex geometric paths and matchings. Our results generalize earlier works of Braß–Károlyi–Valtr, Capoyleas–Pach, and Aronov–Dujmovič–Morin–Ooms-da Silveira. We also provide a new variation of the Erdős-Ko-Rado theorem in the ordered setting.

Fix an integer $r \ge 3$. We consider metric spaces on n points such that the distance between any two points lies in $\left\{ {1, \ldots ,r} \right\}$. Our main result describes their approximate structure for large n. As a consequence, we show that the number of these metric spaces is $\left\lceil {{{r + 1} \over 2}} \right\rceil ^{\left( {\matrix{ n \cr 2 \cr } } \right) + o\left( {n^2 } \right)} .$

Related results in the continuous setting have recently been proved by Kozma, Meyerovitch, Peled, and Samotij [34]. When r is even, our structural characterization is more precise and implies that almost all such metric spaces have all distances at least $r/2$. As an easy consequence, when r is even, we improve the error term above from $o\left( {n^2 } \right)$ to $o\left( 1 \right)$, and also show a labeled first-order 0-1 law in the language ${\cal L}_r $, consisting of r binary relations, one for each element of $[r]$ . In particular, we show the almost sure theory T is the theory of the Fraïssé limit of the class of all finite simple complete edge-colored graphs with edge colors in $\left\{ {r/2, \ldots ,r} \right\}$.

Our work can be viewed as an extension of a long line of research in extremal combinatorics to the colored setting, as well as an addition to the collection of known structures that admit logical 0-1 laws.

Motivated by the Erdős–Szekeres convex polytope conjecture in $\mathbb{R}^{d}$, we initiate the study of the following induced Ramsey problem for hypergraphs. Given integers $n>k\geqslant 5$, what is the minimum integer $g_{k}(n)$ such that any$k$-uniform hypergraph on $g_{k}(n)$ vertices with the property that any set of $k+1$ vertices induces 0, 2, or 4 edges, contains an independent set of size $n$. Our main result shows that $g_{k}(n)>2^{cn^{k-4}}$, where $c=c(k)$.

We prove that the number of multigraphs with vertex set {1, . . ., n} such that every four vertices span at most nine edges is an2+o(n2) where a is transcendental (assuming Schanuel's conjecture from number theory). This is an easy consequence of the solution to a related problem about maximizing the product of the edge multiplicities in certain multigraphs, and appears to be the first explicit (somewhat natural) question in extremal graph theory whose solution is transcendental. These results may shed light on a question of Razborov, who asked whether there are conjectures or theorems in extremal combinatorics which cannot be proved by a certain class of finite methods that include Cauchy–Schwarz arguments.

Our proof involves a novel application of Zykov symmetrization applied to multigraphs, a rather technical progressive induction, and a straightforward use of hypergraph containers.

A sunflower is a collection of distinct sets such that the intersection of any two of them is the same as the common intersection C of all of them, and |C| is smaller than each of the sets. A longstanding conjecture due to Erdős and Szemerédi (solved recently in [7, 9]; see also [22]) was that the maximum size of a family of subsets of [n] that contains no sunflower of fixed size k > 2 is exponentially smaller than 2n as n → ∞. We consider the problems of determining the maximum sum and product of k families of subsets of [n] that contain no sunflower of size k with one set from each family. For the sum, we prove that the maximum is

$$(k-1)2^n+1+\sum_{s=0}^{k-2}\binom{n}{s}$$

$$\biggl(\ffrac{1}{8}+o(1)\biggr)2^{3n}.$$

The 3-uniform tight cycle Cs3 has vertex set ${\mathbb Z}_s$ and edge set {{i, i + 1, i + 2}: i ∈ ${\mathbb Z}_s$}. We prove that for every s ≢ 0 (mod 3) with s ⩾ 16 or s ∈ {8, 11, 14} there is a cs > 0 such that the 3-uniform hypergraph Ramsey number r(Cs3, Kn3) satisfies

$$\begin{equation*} r(C_s^3, K_n^3)< 2^{c_s n \log n}.\ \end{equation*}$$

$2^{n^{1+\epsilon_s}}$

For each of the notions of hypergraph quasirandomness that have been studied, we identify a large class of hypergraphs F so that every quasirandom hypergraph H admits a perfect F-packing. An informal statement of a special case of our general result for 3-uniform hypergraphs is as follows. Fix an integer r ⩾ 4 and 0 < p < 1. Suppose that H is an n-vertex triple system with r|n and the following two properties:

• • for every graph G with V(G) = V(H), at least p proportion of the triangles in G are also edges of H,

• • for every vertex x of H, the link graph of x is a quasirandom graph with density at least p.

Let $\mathcal{F}$ be a family of r-uniform hypergraphs. The chromatic threshold of $\mathcal{F}$ is the infimum of all non-negative reals c such that the subfamily of $\mathcal{F}$ comprising hypergraphs H with minimum degree at least $c \binom{| V(H) |}{r-1}$ has bounded chromatic number. This parameter has a long history for graphs (r = 2), and in this paper we begin its systematic study for hypergraphs.

Łuczak and Thomassé recently proved that the chromatic threshold of the so-called near bipartite graphs is zero, and our main contribution is to generalize this result to r-uniform hypergraphs. For this class of hypergraphs, we also show that the exact Turán number is achieved uniquely by the complete (r + 1)-partite hypergraph with nearly equal part sizes. This is one of very few infinite families of non-degenerate hypergraphs whose Turán number is determined exactly. In an attempt to generalize Thomassen's result that the chromatic threshold of triangle-free graphs is 1/3, we prove bounds for the chromatic threshold of the family of 3-uniform hypergraphs not containing {abc, abd, cde}, the so-called generalized triangle.

In order to prove upper bounds we introduce the concept of fibre bundles, which can be thought of as a hypergraph analogue of directed graphs. This leads to the notion of fibre bundle dimension, a structural property of fibre bundles that is based on the idea of Vapnik–Chervonenkis dimension in hypergraphs. Our lower bounds follow from explicit constructions, many of which use a hypergraph analogue of the Kneser graph. Using methods from extremal set theory, we prove that these Kneser hypergraphs have unbounded chromatic number. This generalizes a result of Szemerédi for graphs and might be of independent interest. Many open problems remain.

Let $p(k)$ denote the partition function of $k$. For each $k\geqslant 2$, we describe a list of $p(k)-1$ quasirandom properties that a $k$-uniform hypergraph can have. Our work connects previous notions on linear hypergraph quasirandomness by Kohayakawa, Rödl, and Skokan, and by Conlon, Hàn, Person, and Schacht, and the spectral approach of Friedman and Wigderson. For each of the quasirandom properties that is described, we define the largest and the second largest eigenvalues. We show that a hypergraph satisfies these quasirandom properties if and only if it has a large spectral gap. This answers a question of Conlon, Hàn, Person, and Schacht. Our work can be viewed as a partial extension to hypergraphs of the seminal spectral results of Chung, Graham, and Wilson for graphs.

Let G be a triangle-free graph with n vertices and average degree t. We show that G contains at least

${\exp\biggl({1-n^{-1/12})\frac{1}{2}\frac{n}{t}\ln t} \biggl(\frac{1}{2}\ln t-1\biggr)\biggr)}$

${e^{(c_1-o(1)) \sqrt{n} \ln n}}$

$c_1 = \sqrt{\ln 2}/4 = 0.208138 \ldots$

${e^{(c_2+o(1))\sqrt{n}\ln n}}$

$c_2 = 2\sqrt{\ln 2} = 1.665109 \ldots$

Let H be a (k+1)-uniform linear hypergraph with n vertices and average degree t. We also show that there exists a constant ck such that the number of independent sets in H is at least

${\exp\biggl({c_{k} \frac{n}{t^{1/k}}\ln^{1+1/k}{t}\biggr})}.$

$\Omega\biggl(\frac{n}{t^{1/k}} \ln^{1/k}t\biggr).$

Let F3,3 be the 3-graph on 6 vertices, labelled abcxyz, and 10 edges, one of which is abc, and the other 9 of which are all triples that contain 1 vertex from abc and 2 vertices from xyz. We show that for all n ≥ 6, the maximum number of edges in an F3,3-free 3-graph on n vertices is . This sharpens results of Zhou [9] and of the second author and Rödl [7].

Let 3 ≤ k < n/2. We prove the analogue of the Erdős–Ko–Rado theorem for the random k-uniform hypergraph Gk(n, p) when k < (n/2)1/3; that is, we show that with probability tending to 1 as n → ∞, the maximum size of an intersecting subfamily of Gk(n, p) is the size of a maximum trivial family. The analogue of the Erdős–Ko–Rado theorem does not hold for all p when k ≫ n1/3.

We give quite precise results for k < n1/2−ϵ. For larger k we show that the random Erdős–Ko–Rado theorem holds as long as p is not too small, and fails to hold for a wide range of smaller values of p. Along the way, we prove that every non-trivial intersecting k-uniform hypergraph can be covered by k2 − k + 1 pairs, which is sharp as evidenced by projective planes. This improves upon a result of Sanders [7]. Several open questions remain.

A d-simplex is a collection of d + 1 sets such that every d of them has non-empty intersection and the intersection of all of them is empty. Fix k ≥ d + 2 ≥ 3 and let be a family of k-element subsets of an n-element set that contains no d-simplex. We prove that if , then there is a vertex x of such that the number of sets in omitting x is o(nk−1) (here o(1)→ 0 and n → ∞). A similar result when n/k is bounded from above was recently proved in [10].

Our main result is actually stronger, and implies that if for any ϵ < 0 and n sufficiently large, then contains d + 2 sets A, A1, . . . ,Ad+1 such that the Ais form a d-simplex, and A contains an element of ∩j≠iAj for each i. This generalizes, in asymptotic form, a recent result of Vestraëte and the first author [18], who proved it for d = 1, ϵ = 0 and n ≥ 2k.

Suppose that n > (log k)ck, where c is a fixed positive constant. We prove that, no matter how the edges of Kn are coloured with k colours, there is a copy of K4 whose edges receive at most two colours. This improves the previous best bound of kc′k, where c′ is a fixed positive constant, which follows from results on classical Ramsey numbers.

For a fixed graph $H$, we define the rainbow Turán number $\ex^*(n,H)$ to be the maximum number of edges in a graph on $n$ vertices that has a proper edge-colouring with no rainbow $H$. Recall that the (ordinary) Turán number $\ex(n,H)$ is the maximum number of edges in a graph on $n$ vertices that does not contain a copy of $H$. For any non-bipartite $H$ we show that $\ex^*(n,H)=(1+o(1))\ex(n,H)$, and if $H$ is colour-critical we show that $\ex^{*}(n,H)=\ex(n,H)$. When $H$ is the complete bipartite graph $K_{s,t}$ with $s \leq t$ we show $\ex^*(n,K_{s,t}) = O(n^{2-1/s})$, which matches the known bounds for $\ex(n,K_{s,t})$ up to a constant. We also study the rainbow Turán problem for even cycles, and in particular prove the bound $\ex^*(n,C_6) = O(n^{4/3})$, which is of the correct order of magnitude.

Given a family [Fscr ] of r-graphs, let ex(n, [Fscr ]) be the maximum number of edges in an n-vertex r-graph containing no member of [Fscr ]. Let C(r)4 denote the family of r-graphs with distinct edges A, B, C, D, such that A ∩ B = C ∩ D = Ø and A ∪ B = C ∪ D. For s1 [les ] … [les ] sr, let K(r) (s1,…,sr) be the complete r-partite r-graph with parts of sizes s1,…,sr.

Füredi conjectured over 15 years ago that ex(n,C(3)4) [les ] (n2) for sufficiently large n. We prove the weaker result

ex(n, {C(3)4, K(3)(1,2,4)}) [les ] (n2).

Generalizing a well-known conjecture for the Turán number of bipartite graphs, we conjecture that

ex(n, K(r)(s1,…,sr)) = Θ(nr−1/s),

where s = Πr−1i=1si. We prove this conjecture when s1 = … = sr−2 = 1 and

(i) sr−1 = 2, (ii) sr−1 = sr = 3, (iii)sr > (sr−1−1)!.

In cases (i) and (ii), we determine the asymptotic value of ex(n,K(r)(s1,…,sr)).

We also provide an explicit construction giving

ex(n,K(3)(2,2,3)) > (1/6−o(1))n8/3.

This improves upon the previous best lower bound of Ω(n29/11) obtained by probabilistic methods. Several related open problems are also presented.