A Strengthening of the Erdős-Szekeres Theorem

Abstract

The Erdős-Szekeres Theorem stated in terms of graphs says that any red-blue coloring of the edges of the ordered complete graph $K_{rs+1}$ contains a red copy of the monotone increasing path with $r$ edges or a blue copy of the monotone increasing path with $s$ edges. Although $rs+1$ is the minimum number of vertices needed for this result, not all edges of $K_{rs+1}$ are necessary. We characterize the subgraphs of $K_{rs+1}$ with this coloring property as follows: they are exactly the subgraphs that contain all the edges of a graph we call the circus tent graph $CT(r,s)$. Additionally, we use similar proof techniques to improve upon some of the bounds on the online ordered size Ramsey number of a path given by Pérez-Giménez, Pralat, and West.

arXiv comment16 pages