The size-Ramsey number of powers of bounded degree trees

Abstract: Given a positive integer $s$, the $s$-colour size-Ramsey number of a graph $H$ is the smallest integer $m$ such that there exists a graph $G$ with $m$ edges with the property that, in any colouring of $E(G)$ with $s$ colours, there is a monochromatic copy of $H$. We prove that, for any positive integers $k$ and $s$, the $s$-colour size-Ramsey number of the $k$th power of any $n$-vertex bounded degree tree is linear in $n$. As a corollary we obtain that the $s$-colour size-Ramsey number of $n$-vertex graphs with bounded treewidth and bounded degree is linear in $n$, which answers a question raised by Kam\v{c}ev, Liebenau, Wood and Yepremyan [The size Ramsey number of graphs with bounded treewidth, arXiv:1906.09185 (2019)].