Triangles in randomly perturbed graphs

Abstract

We study the problem of finding pairwise vertex-disjoint triangles in the randomly perturbed graph model, which is the union of any $n$-vertex graph $G$ with linear minimum degree and the binomial random graph $G(n,p)$. We prove that asymptotically almost surely $G \cup G(n,p)$ contains $\min \{\delta(G), \lfloor n/3 \rfloor \}$ pairwise vertex-disjoint triangles, provided $p \ge C \log n/n$, where $C$ is a large enough constant. This is a perturbed version of an old result of Dirac. Our result is asymptotically optimal and answers a question of Han, Morris, and Treglown [RSA, to appear] in the case of triangle-factors. Together with a result of Balogh, Treglown, and Wagner [CPC, 2019, no. 2, 159-176] this fully resolves the existence of triangle-factors in randomly perturbed graphs. We also prove a stability version of our result. Finally, we discuss further generalisations to larger clique-factors, larger cycle-factors, and $2$-universality.