Weak regularity and finitely forcible graph limits

Abstract

Graphons are analytic objects representing limits of convergent sequences of graphs. Lov\'asz and Szegedy conjectured that every finitely forcible graphon, i.e. any graphon determined by finitely many subgraph densities, has a simple structure. In particular, one of their conjectures would imply that every finitely forcible graphon has a weak \(\varepsilon\)-regular partition with the number of parts bounded by a polynomial in \(\varepsilon^{-1}\). We construct a finitely forcible graphon \(W\) such that the number of parts in any weak \(\varepsilon\)-regular partition of \(W\) is at least exponential in \(\varepsilon^{-2}/2^{5\log^*\varepsilon^{-2}}\). This bound almost matches the known upper bound for graphs and, in a certain sense, is the best possible for graphons.