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On two problems in graph Ramsey theory

We study two classical problems in graph Ramsey theory, that of determining the Ramsey number of bounded-degree graphs and that of estimating the induced Ramsey number for a graph with a given number of vertices. The Ramsey number r(H) of a graph H is the least positive integer N such that every two-coloring of the edges of the complete graph $K_N$ contains a monochromatic copy of H. A famous result of Chvátal, Rödl, Szemerédi and Trotter states that there exists a constant c(Δ) such that r(H) \leq c(Δ) n for every graph H with n vertices and maximum degree Δ. The important open question is to determine the constant c(Δ). The best results, both due to Graham, Rödl and Ruciński, state that there are constants c and c' such that 2^{c' Δ} \leq c(Δ) \leq 2^{c Δ\log^2 Δ}. We improve this upper bound, showing that there is a constant c for which c(Δ) \leq 2^{c Δ\log Δ}. The induced Ramsey number r_{ind}(H) of a graph H is the least positive integer N for which there exists a graph G on N vertices such that every two-coloring of the edges of G contains an induced monochromatic copy of H. Erdős conjectured the existence of a constant c such that, for any graph H on n vertices, r_{ind}(H) \leq 2^{c n}. We move a step closer to proving this conjecture, showing that r_{ind} (H) \leq 2^{c n \log n}. This improves upon an earlier result of Kohayakawa, Prömel and Rödl by a factor of \log n in the exponent.