The Bohman-Frieze Process Near Criticality

The Erdős-Rényi process begins with an empty graph on n vertices and edges are added randomly one at a time to a graph. A classical result of Erdős and Rényi states that the Erdős-Rényi process undergoes a phase transition, which takes place when the number of edges reaches n/2 (we say at time 1) and a giant component emerges. Since this seminal work of Erdős and Rényi, various random graph models have been introduced and studied. In this paper we study the so-called Bohman-Frieze process, a simple modification of the Erdős-Rényi process. The Bohman-Frieze process begins with an empty graph on n vertices. At each step two random edges are present and if the first edge would join two isolated vertices, it is added to a graph; otherwise the second edge is added. We present several new results on the phase transition of the Bohman-Frieze random graph process. We show that the Bohman-Frieze process has a qualitatively similar phase transition to the Erdős-Rényi process in terms of the size and structure of the components near the critical point. We prove that all components at time t_c-\eps (that is, when the number of edges are (t_c-\eps) n/2) are trees or unicyclic components and that the largest component is of size Ω(\eps^{-2} \log n). Further, at t_c + \eps, all components apart from the giant component are trees or unicyclic and the size of the second-largest component is Θ(\eps^{-2} \log n). Each of these results corresponds to an analogous well-known result for the Erdős-Rényi process. Our methods include combinatorial arguments and a combination of the differential equation method for random processes with singularity analysis of generating functions which satisfy quasi-linear partial differential equations.

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