Disproof of a conjecture of Erd\H{o}s and Simonovits on the Tur\'an number of graphs with minimum degree 3

Abstract

In 1981, Erd\H{o}s and Simonovits conjectured that for any bipartite graph $H$ we have $\mathrm{ex}(n,H)=O(n^{3/2})$ if and only if $H$ is $2$-degenerate. Later, Erd\H{o}s offered 250 dollars for a proof and 500 dollars for a counterexample. In this paper, we disprove the conjecture by finding, for any $\varepsilon>0$, a $3$-regular bipartite graph $H$ with $\mathrm{ex}(n,H)=O(n^{4/3+\varepsilon})$.