Preorder induced by rainbow forbidden subgraphs

Abstract

A subgraph $H$ of an edge-colored graph $G$ is rainbow if all the edges of $H$ receive different colors. If $G$ does not contain a rainbow subgraph isomorphic to $H$, we say that $G$ is rainbow $H$-free. For connected graphs $H_1$ and $H_2$, if every rainbow $H_1$-free edge-colored complete graph colored in sufficiently many colors is rainbow $H_2$-free, we write $H_1\le H_2$. The binary relation $\le$ is reflexive and transitive, and hence it is a preorder. If $H_1$ is a subgraph of $H_2$, then trivially $H_1\le H_2$ holds. On the other hand, there exists a pair $(H_1,H_2)$ such that $H_1$ is a proper supergraph of $H_2$ and $H_1\le H_2$ holds. Cui et al.~[Discrete Math.~\textbf{344} (2021) Article Number 112267] characterized these pairs. In this paper, we investigate the pairs $(H_1,H_2)$ with $H_1\le H_2$ when neither $H_1$ nor $H_2$ is a subgraph of the other. We prove that there are many such pairs and investigate their structure with respect to $\le$.

24 pages, 4 figures