Monochromatic balanced components, matchings, and paths in multicolored complete bipartite graphs

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Abstract: It is well-known that in every r-coloring of the edges of the complete bipartite graph Kn,n there is a monochromatic connected component with at least 2noverr vertices. It would be interesting to know whether we can additionally require that this large component be balanced; that is, is it true that in every r-coloring of Kn,n there is a monochromatic component that meets both sides in at least n/r vertices? Over forty years ago, Gy'arf'as and Lehel and independently Faudree and Schelp proved that any 2-colored Kn,n contains a monochromatic Pn. Very recently, Buci'c, Letzter and Sudakov proved that every 3-colored Kn,n contains a monochromatic connected matching (a matching whose edges are in the same connected component) of size lceiln/3ceil. So the answer is strongly "yes" for 1leqrleq3. We provide a short proof of (a non-symmetric version of) the original question for 1leqrleq3; that is, every r-coloring of Km,n has a monochromatic component that meets each side in a 1/r proportion of its part size. Then, somewhat surprisingly, we show that the answer to the question is "no" for all rge4. For instance, there are 4-colorings of Kn,n where the largest balanced monochromatic component has n/5 vertices in both partite classes (instead of n/4). Our constructions are based on lower bounds for the r-color bipartite Ramsey number of P4, denoted f(r), which is the smallest integer ell such that in every r-coloring of the edges of Kell,ell there is a monochromatic path on four vertices. Furthermore, combined with earlier results, we determine f(r) for every value of r.









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