Paper 4, Section II, G

Graph Theory
Part II, 2019

State and prove Hall's theorem.

Let nn be an even positive integer. Let X={A:A[n]}X=\{A: A \subset[n]\} be the power set of [n]={1,2,,n}[n]=\{1,2, \ldots, n\}. For 1in1 \leqslant i \leqslant n, let Xi={AX:A=i}X_{i}=\{A \in X:|A|=i\}. Let QQ be the graph with vertex set XX where A,BXA, B \in X are adjacent if and only if AB=1|A \triangle B|=1. [Here, ABA \triangle B denotes the symmetric difference of AA and BB, given by AB:=(AB)\(AB).]A \triangle B:=(A \cup B) \backslash(A \cap B) .]

Let 1in21 \leqslant i \leqslant \frac{n}{2}. Why is the induced subgraph Q[XiXi1]Q\left[X_{i} \cup X_{i-1}\right] bipartite? Show that it contains a matching from Xi1X_{i-1} to XiX_{i}.

A chain in XX is a subset CX\mathcal{C} \subset X such that whenever A,BCA, B \in \mathcal{C} we have ABA \subset B or BAB \subset A. What is the least positive integer kk such that XX can be partitioned into kk pairwise disjoint chains? Justify your answer.