Cover \(k\)-uniform hypergraphs by monochromatic loose paths (Q2411510)

Summary: A conjecture of \textit{A. Gyárfás} and \textit{G. Sárközy} [Electron. J. Comb. 21, No. 2, Research Paper P2.36, 10 p. (2014; Zbl 1300.05199)] says that in every \(2\)-coloring of the edges of the complete \(k\)-uniform hypergraph \(\mathcal{K}_n^k\), there are two disjoint monochromatic loose paths of distinct colors such that they cover all but at most \(k-2\) vertices. Recently, the authors affirmed the conjecture. In the note we show that for every \(2\)-coloring of \(\mathcal{K}_n^k\), one can find two monochromatic paths of distinct colors to cover all vertices of \(\mathcal{K}_n^k\) such that they share at most \(k-2\) vertices. \textit{G. R. Omidi} and \textit{M. Shahsiah} [SIAM J. Discrete Math. 31, No. 3, 1634--1669 (2017; Zbl 1368.05108)] conjectured that \(R(\mathcal{P}_t^k,\mathcal{P}_t^k) =t(k-1)+\lfloor \frac{t+1}{2}\rfloor\) holds for \(k\geq 3\) and they affirmed the conjecture for \(k=3\) or \(k\geq 8\). We show that if the conjecture is true, then \(k-2\) is best possible for our result.