Existence of a symmetric bipodal phase in the edge-triangle model

Abstract: In the edge-triangle model with edge density close to 1/2 and triangle density below 1/8 we prove that the unique entropy-maximizing graphon is symmetric bipodal. We also prove that,for any edge density $e$ less than $e_0 = (3-\sqrt{3})/6 \approx 0.2113$ and triangle density slightly less than $e^3$, the entropy-maximizing graphon is not symmetric bipodal.