%! TEX root = PC.tex % vim: tw=80 ft=tex % 17/11/2025 09AM What is the number of triangle-free graphs on $n$ vertices? \begin{fcthm}[Erdős, Klietman, Rothchild, 70s] \label{thm:EKR} The number of triangle-free graphs on $n$ vertices is $2^{\frac{n^2}{4} + o(n^2)}$. \end{fcthm} \begin{remark*} ``$\ge$'' comes from considering all subgraphs of $K_{\frac{n}{2}, \frac{n}{2}}$. Can sort of think of this as saying `almost all triangle-free graphs are bipartite'. \end{remark*} \begin{fclemma}[] \label{lemma:TFcontainers} For every $\eps > 0$ and $n$ large enough, there exists a family of graphs $\mathcal{G} = \mathcal{G}_{n, \eps}$ on $[n]$ with the following properties: \begin{enumerate}[(1)] \item $|\mathcal{G}| \le 2^{\eps n^2}$. \item All $G \in \mathcal{G}$ can be made triangle-free by removing $\le \eps n^2$ edges. \item Every triangle-free graph on $[n]$ is contained in some $G \in \mathcal{G}$. \end{enumerate} \end{fclemma} \begin{proof}[Proof of \nameref{thm:EKR} using \cref{lemma:TFcontainers}] Let $\eps > 0$ be given. Then for large enough $n$, \begin{align*} \text{\# of triangle-free graphs} &\le \sum_{G \in \mathcal{C}_{n, \eps^2}} \sum_{H \subset G} 1 \\ &\le \sum_{G \in \mathcal{C}} 2^{\frac{n^2}{4}} \cdot {{n \choose 2} \choose \eps^2 n^2} \\ &\le 2^{\frac{n^2}{4} + \eps n^2} \qedhere \end{align*} \end{proof} \begin{proof}[Proof of \cref{lemma:TFcontainers}] Given a graph $H$ on $[k]$ and a partition $[n] = V_1 \cup \cdots \cup V_k$, we define $G$ to be the blow up of $H$ onte $\{V_i\}$ by $V(G) = [n]$ and include all of $V_i V_j$ into $G$ whenever $ij \in H$. Let $\eps > 0$ be given. We define $\mathcal{G} = \mathcal{G}_{n, \eps}$ to be all graphs formed in the following steps. Let $L = L \left( \frac{10}{\eps}, \frac{\eps^2}{2} \right)$. \begin{enumerate}[(1)] \item Let $H$ be a triangle-free graph on $[k]$ where $k \le l$. \item Let $u[n] = V_1 \cup \cdots \cup V_k$ be an \gls{equip}, and blow up $H$ onto $\{V_i\}$. \item Throw in $\eps^2 n^2$ edges in any way. \end{enumerate} Check $|\mathcal{G}|$ is small: \[ |\mathcal{G}| \le \ub{2^{L^2}}_{\text{step 1}} \ub{(n! 2^k)}_{\text{step 2}} \ub{{n^2 \choose \eps^2 n^2}}_{\text{step 3}} \le 2^{\eps n^2} .\] Each $G \in \mathcal{G}$ can be made triangle-free by removing $\le \eps n^2$ edges: this is true by construction (in fact only need to remove $\eps^2 n^2$ edges). Finally, we need to check that every triangle-free graph on $[n]$ is contained in some $G \in \mathcal{G}$. We apply \nameref{thm:regularity} with parameter $l = \frac{10}{\eps}$, $\frac{\eps^2}{2}$, to get a partition $[n] = V_1 \cup \cdots \cup V_k$ with $k \le L$. Consider the reduced graph $R = R_{\eps^2, \frac{\eps^2}{2}}$. Note $R$ is triangle-free. So use $G \subset R$ blown up to $\{V_1\}$ plus $\eps^2 n$ extra edges. \end{proof} Reminder of \nameref{thm:regularity}: \begin{fcthm}[Regularity Lemma] For $\eps > 0$, $l \in \Nbb$, there exists $L(l, \eps)$ such that the following holds: Let $G$ be a graph. Then there exists an \gls{equip} $V(G) = V_1 \cup \cdots \cup V_k$ with $l \le k \le L(l, \eps)$, where $\{V_i\}$ \gls{equip} and all but $\eps {k \choose 2}$ pairs $(V_i, V_j)$ are \gls{epsunif}. \end{fcthm} \begin{center} \includegraphics[width=0.6\linewidth]{images/108b5b70772e446d.png} \end{center} \begin{proof}[Proof of \nameref{thm:regularity}] Given $\eps, l$ and a graph $G$, we loop the following, iteratively refining a partition. Start with $V(G) = V_1 \cup \cdots \cup V_l$, arbitrarily into an \gls{equip}. At a general step, we are given \[ V(G) = V_1 \cup \cdots \cup V_k \] an \gls{equip}. If there are $\le \eps {k \choose 2}$ non \gls{epsunif} pairs, then output $\{V_i\}_{i = 1}^k$ and done So assume $> {k \choose 2}$. For each non \gls{epsunif} pair $V_i, V_j$, we select $W_{ij} \subset V_i$, $W_{ji} \subset V_j$, $W_{ij}|, |W_{ji}| \ge \eps|V_i|$ and $|\density(W_{ij}, W_{ji}) - d(V_i, V_j)| > \eps$. Now for each $V_i$ consider $\{W_{ij}\}_{i = 1}^k$. Let \[ V_i = \bigcup_j U_{ij} \] be a common refinement of these $\{W_{ij}\}$. We now refine this partition further to an \gls{equip} where each cell has size $\frac{n}{k4^k}$ (this is a slight cheat $*$). Putting all these partitions together, we get \[ V(G) = \bigcup_{i, j} V_{ij} .\] Now loop again with this partition. Next step: show that this loop eventually terminates.