Many $H$-copies in graphs with a forbidden tree

Abstract

For graphs $H$ and $F$, let $\operatorname{ex}(n, H, F)$ be the maximum possible number of copies of $H$ in an $F$-free graph on $n$ vertices. The study of this function, which generalises the well-studied Tur\'an numbers of graphs, was initiated recently by Alon and Shikhelman. We show that if $F$ is a tree then $\operatorname{ex}(n, H, F) = \Theta(n^r)$ for some integer $r = r(H, F)$, thus answering one of their questions.