Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

In 1995 Kim famously proved the Ramsey bound $R(3,t) \ge c t^2/\log t$ by constructing an $n$-vertex graph that is triangle-free and has independence number at most $C \sqrt{n \log n}$. We extend this celebrated result, which is best possible up to the value of the constants, by approximately decomposing the complete graph $K_n$ into a packing of such nearly optimal Ramsey $R(3,t)$ graphs. More precisely, for any $\epsilon>0$ we find an edge-disjoint collection $(G_i)_i$ of $n$-vertex graphs $G_i \subseteq K_n$ such that (a) each $G_i$ is triangle-free and has independence number at most $C_\epsilon \sqrt{n \log n}$, and (b) the union of all the $G_i$ contains at least $(1-\epsilon)\binom{n}{2}$ edges. Our algorithmic proof proceeds by sequentially choosing the graphs $G_i$ via a semi-random (i.e., Rödl nibble type) variation of the triangle-free process. As an application, we prove a conjecture in Ramsey theory by Fox, Grinshpun, Liebenau, Person, and Szabó (concerning a Ramsey-type parameter introduced by Burr, Erdös, Lovász in 1976). Namely, denoting by $s_r(H)$ the smallest minimum degree of $r$-Ramsey minimal graphs for $H$, we close the existing logarithmic gap for $H=K_3$ and establish that $s_r(K_3) = \Theta(r^2 \log r)$. Based on joint work with Lutz Warnke.