Minimal decompositions of graphs into mutually isomorphic subgraphs

SupposeG _n={G ₁, ...,G _k } is a collection of graphs, all havingn vertices ande edges. By aU-decomposition ofG _n we mean a set of partitions of the edge setsE(G _t ) of theG _i , sayE(G _t )== \(\sum\limits_{j = 1}^r {E_{ij} } \) E _ij , such that for eachj, all theE _ij , 1≦i≦k, are isomorphic as graphs. Define the functionU(G _n) to be the least possible value ofr aU-decomposition ofG _n can have. Finally, letU _k (n) denote the largest possible valueU(G) can assume whereG ranges over all sets ofk graphs havingn vertices and the same (unspecified) number of edges. In an earlier paper, the authors showed that $$U_2 (n) = \frac{2}{3}n + o(n).$$ In this paper, the value ofU _k (n) is investigated fork>2. It turns out rather unexpectedly that the leading term ofU _k (n) does not depend onk. In particular we show $$U_k (n) = \frac{3}{4}n + o_k (n),k \geqq 3.$$