Extremal problems of Erdős, Faudree, Schelp and Simonovits on paths and cycles

For positive integers $n>d\geq k$, let $\phi(n,d,k)$ denote the least integer $\phi$ such that every $n$-vertex graph with at least $\phi$ vertices of degree at least $d$ contains a path on $k+1$ vertices. Many years ago, Erd\H{o}s, Faudree, Schelp and Simonovits proposed the study of the function $\phi(n,d,k)$, and conjectured that for any positive integers $n>d\geq k$, it holds that $\phi(n,d,k)\leq \lfloor\frac{k-1}{2}\rfloor\lfloor\frac{n}{d+1}\rfloor+\epsilon$, where $\epsilon=1$ if $k$ is odd and $\epsilon=2$ otherwise. In this paper we determine the values of the function $\phi(n,d,k)$ exactly. This confirms the above conjecture of Erd\H{o}s et al. for all positive integers $k\neq 4$ and in a corrected form for the case $k=4$. Our proof utilizes, among others, a lemma of Erd\H{o}s et al. \cite{EFSS89}, a theorem of Jackson \cite{J81}, and a (slight) extension of a very recent theorem of Kostochka, Luo and Zirlin \cite{KLZ}, where the latter two results concern maximum cycles in bipartite graphs. Moreover, we construct examples to provide answers to two closely related questions raised by Erd\H{o}s et al.

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