On the anti-Ramsey numbers of linear forests

Abstract

For a fixed graph $F$, the $\text{anti-Ramsey number}$, $AR(n,F)$, is the maximum number of colors in an edge-coloring of $K_n$ which does not contain a rainbow copy of $F$. In this paper, we determine the exact value of anti-Ramsey numbers of linear forests for sufficiently large $n$, and show the extremal edge-colored graphs. This answers a question of Fang, Győri, Lu and Xiao.