Ordered and convex geometric trees with linear extremal function

Abstract

The extremal functions $ex_{\rightarrow}(n,F)$ and $ex_{\cir}(n,F)$ for ordered and convex geometric acyclic graphs $F$ have been extensively investigated by a number of researchers. Basic questions are to determine when $ex_{\rightarrow}(n,F)$ and $ex_{\cir}(n,F)$ are linear in $n$, the latter posed by Bra\ss-K\'arolyi-Valtr in 2003. In this paper, we answer both these questions for every tree $F$. We give a forbidden subgraph characterization for a family $\cal T$ of ordered trees with $k$ edges, and show that $ex_{\rightarrow}(n,T) = (k - 1)n - {k \choose 2}$ for all $n \geq k + 1$ when $T \in {\cal T}$ and $ex_{\rightarrow}(n,T) = \Omega(n\log n)$ for $T \not\in {\cal T}$. We also describe the family of the convex geometric trees with linear Tur\' an number and show that for every convex geometric tree $F$ not in this family, $ex_{\cir}(n,F)= \Omega(n\log \log n)$.