Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2021
A long-standing conjecture of Erdős and Simonovits asserts that for every rational number $r\in (1,2)$ there exists a bipartite graph H such that
$\mathrm{ex}(n,H)=\Theta(n^r)$. So far this conjecture is known to be true only for rationals of form
$1+1/k$ and
$2-1/k$, for integers
$k\geq 2$. In this paper, we add a new form of rationals for which the conjecture is true:
$2-2/(2k+1)$, for
$k\geq 2$. This in turn also gives an affirmative answer to a question of Pinchasi and Sharir on cube-like graphs. Recently, a version of Erdős and Simonovits
$^{\prime}$s conjecture, where one replaces a single graph by a finite family, was confirmed by Bukh and Conlon. They proposed a construction of bipartite graphs which should satisfy Erdős and Simonovits
$^{\prime}$s conjecture. Our result can also be viewed as a first step towards verifying Bukh and Conlon
$^{\prime}$s conjecture. We also prove an upper bound on the Turán number of theta graphs in an asymmetric setting and employ this result to obtain another new rational exponent for Turán exponents:
$r=7/5$.