Lovász number Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-06
The Lovász number of a finite simple graph is the semidefinite program value
where is the all-ones matrix. Its value on the complement graph gives a lower bound for the chromatic number.
We need independent sets in every sufficiently large remaining induced subgraph, rather than just one in the initial random graph. The useful concentration variable is the maximum edge-disjoint clique packing in the complement graph; changing one edge changes that variable by at most one. This avoids the much larger sensitivity of the ordinary clique count in a binomial random graph.
First work in a binomial random graph , take , and let count its -cliques. Put and let be its maximum edge-disjoint clique packing size. Form the clique conflict graph whose vertices are these cliques, adjacent when they share an edge. If counts unordered conflicting pairs, the Caro-Wei bound gives, for each realization,
To verify the bound, randomly order the vertices of a finite graph and retain each vertex preceding all its graph neighbours. These retained vertices are an independent set, with expected size by the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality. Interpret the ratio as zero when . A second application of the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, now to expectations, gives
Counting ordered pairs of -sets with common vertices, including identical sets when , yields
The shared edges account for the factor . We claim
Here are the estimates, including the large overlaps. For , the probability that a random -set contains any specified elements is at most . Summing over their choices inside the first -set gives
The logarithm of is a convex function, a quadratic in , so the maximum on this interval is at an endpoint. We have . As , the other endpoint satisfies
and is smaller than for sufficiently large . Summing at most terms gives .
For the other half of the overlaps, write , where . The exact identity and an upper bound are
The quantity in parentheses is , which tends to zero. The geometric series is thus at most for sufficiently large . This proves the claim. In fact and , so eventually
Now expose the independent edge indicators one at a time. The edge-exposure martingale starts at and ends at . Deleting one edge destroys at most one member of any edge-disjoint clique packing. Hence changing one indicator changes by at most one; coupling the remaining indicators shows .
Precisely, the Azuma-Hoeffding inequality says that if is a martingale and almost surely for deterministic , then, for ,
If all , the martingale is constant. Applying the lower-tail inequality with and gives
for sufficiently large . This is the only martingale concentration inequality needed.
Return to the original binomial random graph and set . For each fixed -element vertex set , the complement graph of has distribution . The union bound therefore gives
since . Thus with high probability every vertex set of size at least contains an independent set of size
Apply greedy colouring by removing independent sets: remove such an independent set, give it a fresh colour, and repeat while at least vertices remain. Give each of the fewer than final vertices its own colour. This uses at most
colours, since . Together with the lower bound, this gives the chromatic number of the half-density binomial random graph:
The diagonal Ramsey number is the least positive integer such that every red-blue edge colouring of the complete graph contains a monochromatic copy of .
For the existence and bound, write for the least forcing either a red or a blue . Given a vertex of , the pigeonhole principle says that at least incident edges are red or at least are blue. In the first case those red neighbours contain a red , which joins to to make a red , or a blue ; the second case is symmetric. Hence
Starting from and using Pascal's identity gives the binomial upper bound for a Ramsey number
Therefore
which proves both existence and the required estimate.
To determine , color a cycle graph red and its complement graph, also a , yellow. This colors without a monochromatic triangle, so . At any vertex of a red-yellow , at least three of the five incident edges have one color. If an edge among their three other endpoints has that color, it completes a monochromatic triangle with the chosen vertex; if none does, those three endpoints themselves form a triangle of the other color. Thus , and
The same local argument proves uniqueness on . No vertex can have three incident edges of one color: their other endpoints would either contain an edge of that color or form a triangle of the other color. Every vertex therefore has vertex degree at most two in each color, and because the two degrees sum to four, each is exactly two. Each color class is consequently a regular graph of degree two on five vertices, hence a single . Up to relabelling, the coloring is exactly the cycle-and-complement coloring above.
Finally, the monochromatic-triangle counting formula gives, for a coloring of with red degrees ,
The bound is attained by coloring all edges of red and the two complementary copies of yellow: there are no red triangles and exactly two yellow triangles. The least requested number is therefore
Let have vertices and edges. Its complement graph has
edges. If both graphs were planar, the planar graph edge bound would give
Equivalently, , whose larger root is . Thus an integer is impossible, proving that
Now suppose that and are both bipartite. In a bipartition , every pair within and every pair within is adjacent in . Since a bipartite graph contains no triangle, , and hence . Equality is attained by the path , whose complement is again a copy of . Therefore the maximum order is
If a graph and its complement graph are both bipartite, then the graph has at most four vertices. Indeed, each part of a bipartition of the original graph induces a clique in the complement and therefore has at most two vertices. The bound is attained by the four-vertex path, whose complement is another four-vertex path.