Compactness and finite forcibility of graphons (Q2327712)

Summary: Graphons are analytic objects associated with convergent sequences of graphs. Problems from extremal combinatorics and theoretical computer science led to a study of graphons determined by finitely many subgraph densities, which are referred to as finitely forcible. Following the intuition that such graphons should have finitary structure, \textit{L. Lovász} and \textit{B. Szegedy} [J. Comb. Theory, Ser. B 101, No. 5, 269--301 (2011; Zbl 1223.05248)] conjectured that the topological space of typical vertices of a finitely forcible graphon is always compact. We disprove the conjecture by constructing a finitely forcible graphon such that the associated space is not compact. The construction method gives a general framework for constructing finitely forcible graphons with non-trivial properties.