MANTEL’S THEOREM: THE VERTEX

DEGREES VERSION
MICHAEL TWITO
July 21, 2018

1 Introduction
Mantel t.h.m give us an upper bound on the number of edges in n-vertex
graph that is K3 − f ree. In this note we will take a closer look on the
degrees of thoose graphs.

2 Definitions
For a graph H, letex(n, H) denote the maximum number of edges in an
H − f ree n-vertex graph.
Ex(n, H) := {G : |V (G)| = n, G ∈ H − f ree, E(G) = ex(n, H)}
The members of this set are called the extremal H-free graphs on n-vertices.

3 Claims
Claim: If G is an n-vertex,n ≥ 1,K3 -free graph then δ(G) ≤ n/2.
Proof. By induction on n.
trivial cases: n=1,2,3.
Step: Fix an edge xy ∈ E(G).Then G − {xy} is an (n − 2)-vertex triangle-free
graph so by I.H δ(G − {xy}) ≤ (n − 2)/2. In the graph G, each vertex of
G − {xy} may be incident to at most one of x and y. Then for a vertex
v ∈ V (G − {xy}) satisying degG−{x,y} (v) = δ(G − {xy}) we have degG (n) ≤
(n − 2)/2 + 1 = n/2. For the vertices x and y we have that at most n − 1
edges are incident to both these vertices. Hence, one of those is incident to
at most (n − 1)/2 edges and the claim follows.

1
Claim: Any n-vertex K3 -free graph G with δ(G) ≥ n/2 is bipartite.
Proof. Fix v ∈ V (G). Then NG (v) is independent and of size ≥ n/2. Each
vertex in u ∈ NG (v) satisfies NG (u) = {v} (V (G)\NG (V )) and u NG (u) is
T S

independent and the claim follows.

Claim: Any n − vertex graph G with δ(G) ≥ (n − 1)/2 is connected.

Proof. Assume toward a contradiction that there are 2 non−adjacent vertices
denoted u and v have no common neighbour.Then |NG (u) NG (v)| ≤ n −
S

2(excluding x and y from the union). Then by the principle of inclusion-

exclusion we have
[ \ n−1
n−2 ≥ |NG (u) NG (v)|+|NG (u) NG (v)| = degG (v)+degG (u) ≥ 2( ) = n−1
2
a contradiction

Mentel’s theorem - alternative proof by strong induction

For all n ≥ 1, ex(n, K3 ) ≤ n2 /4.

Proof. Let G be a K3 − f ree graph and let v ∈ V (G) satisfy degG (v) = δ(G)
then degG (v) ≤ n/2. By the I.H we have
(n − 1)2 n
E(G) = E(G − v) + degG (v) ≤ b c+b c
4 2

Theorem(Jensen’s inequality):
Let f be a real valued convex function. Then for every x1 , ..., xn and α1 , ..., αn
with αi ∈ [0, 2] X X
f ( α i xi ) ≤ αi f (xi )
i i
Mentel’s theorem - alternative proof by Jensen’s inequality
Proof. Let G be triangle-free graph on n vertices. Then
P
X X
2 v degG (v) 2
E(G)n ≥ (degG (x) + degG (y)) = degG (v) ≥ n( )
xy∈E(G) v n

4E(G)2 E(G)2
=n = 4
n2 n