Hamiltonicity-to-pancyclicity sprinkling principle Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
For a decreasing probability sequence , if contains a Hamilton cycle with high probability, then is pancyclic with high probability for every fixed sufficiently large ; three independent rounds suffice. One first exposes a Hamiltonian round and uses the independent sprinkled edges to create cycles of every shorter length.
Use sprinkling of a binomial random graph to write , where the rounds are independent,
and is chosen large enough that . By the given theorem, has a Hamilton cycle with high probability.
Condition on such a cycle. For each , every chord closes one of the two paths around the Hamilton cycle into a cycle of length . There are at least distinct candidate chords, so the probability that supplies none is at most
A union bound over the fewer than lengths shows that all these cycles occur simultaneously with high probability when . The Hamilton cycle itself supplies length , so is pancyclic.
The sharp Hamilton cycle threshold for the Erdős-Rényi model says that
only above the window . The hypothesis therefore places above that window. The Hamiltonicity-to-pancyclicity sprinkling principle then says that three independent rounds contain every cycle graph , , with high probability: one round supplies a Hamilton cycle, while the other two supply the chords and short-cycle edges used to obtain all intermediate lengths.
The union of the three rounds has individual edge probability
By the standard monotone coupling, it is a subgraph of . Since being pancyclic is an increasing graph property, the required probability tends to one. If , interpret the latter parameter as , in which case the conclusion is immediate.