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Combinatorics Difficulty 6.9 National Olympiad Prove it Mongolia

Let nn and dd be positive integers satisfying d<n2d < \frac{n}{2}. There are nn boys and nn girls in a school. Each boy has at most dd girlfriends and each girl has at most dd boyfriends. Prove that one can introduce some of them to make each boy have exactly 2d2d girlfriends and each girl have exactly 2d2d boyfriends.

(proposed by B. Batbayasgalan, folklore)

Solution

Let us define a bipartite graph GG as usual way. The boys and girls are vertices of the graph and pairs of friends are edges. It suffices to prove that the bipartite complement of this graph has a (n2d)(n - 2d) regular subgraph with 2n2n vertices.

Lemma. Let GG be a bipartite graph. V(G)=ABV(G) = A \cup B and all the vertices are between AA and BB. Let A=B=n|A| = |B| = n. If kXe(X,Y)+k(nY)k|X| \le e(X, Y) + k(n - |Y|) holds for any XAX \subseteq A and for any YBY \subseteq B, then there exists a kk regular subgraph of GG, with vertices V(G)V(G). (e(X,Y)e(X, Y) is the number of edges between XX and YY).

Proof of lemma. Let us consider the following directed graph G~\tilde{G}. V(G~)=V(G){a,b}V(\tilde{G}) = V(G) \cup \{a, b\}, E(G~)={(x,y)xA,yB}{(a,x)xA}{(y,b)yB}E(\tilde{G}) = \{(x, y) \mid x \in A, y \in B\} \cup \{(a, x) \mid x \in A\} \cup \{(y, b) \mid y \in B\}. Now we define weight on the edges. All edges in {(x,y)xA,yB}\{(x, y) \mid x \in A, y \in B\} have weight 11, and all the remaining edges have weight kk. Let us show that max-flow from aa to bb is knkn. By MAX-FLOW, MIN-CUT theorem, it suffices to show that minimum cut is knkn.
Assume that XAX \subseteq A and YBY \subseteq B and {(a,x)xX}{(y,b)yY}\{(a, x) \mid x \in X\} \cup \{(y, b) \mid y \in Y\} are all the edges that not affected by the cut. Then all the edges between XX and YY must be affected. Thus, the weight of cut is at least kAX+kBY+e(X,Y)kAX+kX=kA=knk|A - X| + k|B - Y| + e(X, Y) \ge k|A - X| + k|X| = k|A| = kn. This completes proof of lemma.

Let G~\tilde{G} be the bipartite complement of GG. We need to show that G~\tilde{G} has a (n2d)(n - 2d) regular subgraph with 2n2n vertices. By the lemma, it suffices to show that
(n2d)(nY)+eG~(X,Y)(n2d)X,XA,YB (n - 2d)(n - |Y|) + e_{\tilde{G}}(X, Y) \ge (n - 2d)|X|, \forall X \subseteq A, \forall Y \subseteq B
or equivalently,
(n2d)(X+Yn)eG~(X,Y),XA,YB. (n - 2d)(|X| + |Y| - n) \le e_{\tilde{G}}(X, Y), \forall X \subseteq A, \forall Y \subseteq B.
If Yn2d|Y| \le n - 2d, then Y+2dn0|Y| + 2d - n \le 0 and
(X+dn)(Y+2dn)(n+dn)(Y+2dn)d(2dn). (|X| + d - n)(|Y| + 2d - n) \ge (n + d - n)(|Y| + 2d - n) \ge d(2d - n).
(X+dn)(Y+2dn)(X+dn)d(2dn)d. (|X| + d - n)(|Y| + 2d - n) \ge (|X| + d - n)d \ge (2d - n)d.
If n2dYn - 2d \le |Y| and ndXn - d \le X then from dn2d \le \frac{n}{2},
(X+dn)(Y+2dn)0d(2dn). (|X| + d - n)(|Y| + 2d - n) \ge 0 \le d(2d - n).
If Xd|X| \le d, then from e(X,Y)YYe(X, Y) \le |Y| \cdot |Y| and YXdn2|Y| \le |X| \le d \le \frac{n}{2},
(n2d)(X+Yn)0. (n - 2d)(|X| + |Y| - n) \le 0.
This completes the proof.

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