Cycles of length $2$ modulo odd $k$ and admissible cycles in graphs

Abstract: In 1976, Burr and Erdős conjectured that if $k\mathbb{Z} + \ell$ contains an even integer, there exists a constant $c$ such that every graph with at least $cn$ edges contains a cycle of length $\ell \pmod k$. This conjecture was settled for odd $k$ by Bollobás, while Thomassen completed the proof for all $k$ by resolving the case for even residues. Let $c_{\ell,k}$ denote the smallest constant such that every $n$-vertex graph with at least $c_{\ell,k}n$ edges contains a cycle of length $\ell \pmod{k}$. $k$ cycles are said to be admissible if they form an arithmetic progression of length $k$ with common difference one or two. The exact value of $c_{\ell,k}$ remains unknown for most $(\ell,k)$. Recently, Gao, Huo, Liu, and Ma showed that every graph with minimum degree at least $k+1$ contains $k$ admissible cycles. In this paper, we provide a sharp size version of their result. As a corollary, we show that $c_{2,k}=k$ for all odd $k$. In 2016, Verstraëte conjectured that every $n$-vertex graph $G$ containing no $k$ cycles of consecutive even lengths has at most $(2k+1)(n-1)/2$ edges, with equality only if every block of $G$ is a clique of order $2k+1$. We prove this conjecture for $2k+2\leq n\leq 4k+1$, and in fact obtain a stronger result in this range.