A family of sets is said to be symmetric if its automorphism group is transitive, and $3$-wise intersecting if any three sets in the family have nonempty intersection. Frankl conjectured in 1981 that if $\mathcal{A}$ is a symmetric $3$-wise intersecting family of subsets of $\{1,2,\dots,n\}$, then $|\mathcal{A}| = o(2^n)$. Here, we give a short proof of Frankl's conjecture using a 'sharp threshold' result of Friedgut and Kalai.
Using the Filmus-Golubev-Lifshitz method to bound the independence number of a hypergraph, we solve some problems concerning multiply intersecting families with biased measure. Among other results we obtain a stability result of a measure version of the Erdos-Ko-Rado theorem for multiply intersecting families.
Guo and Xu determined the maximum size of intersecting families over finite affine spaces and showed that any family reaches maximum size must be trivial. In this paper, we characterize non-trivial intersecting family with maximum size.
In this paper, by shifting technique we study $t$-intersecting families for direct products where the ground set is divided into several parts. Assuming the size of each part is sufficiently large, we determine all extremal $t$-intersecting families for direct products. We also prove that every largest $t$-intersecting subfamily of a more general family introduced by Katona is trivial under certain conditions.
A family $\mathcal{F}$ of subsets of $\{1,\dots,n\}$ is called $k$-wise intersecting if any $k$ members of $\mathcal{F}$ have non-empty intersection, and it is called maximal $k$-wise intersecting if no family strictly containing $\mathcal{F}$ satisfies this condition. We show that for each $k\geq 2$ there is a maximal $k$-wise intersecting family of size $O(2^{n/(k-1)})$. Up to a constant factor, this matches the best known lower bound, and answers an old question of Erdős and Kleitman, recently studied by Hendrey, Lund, Tompkins, and Tran.
Let $n=2k+1$ be odd with $k\geq3$. In this note, we give two intersecting families with diversity larger than $\sum_{i=k+1}^{2k} \binom {2k}{i}$, which disprove a conjecture of Huang.
Bernáth and Gerbner in 2007 introduced $(p,q)$-chain intersecting families of subsets of an $n$-element underlying set. Those have the property that for any $p$-chain $A_1\subsetneq A_2\subsetneq \dots \subsetneq A_p$ and $q$-chain $B_1\subsetneq B_2\subsetneq \dots \subsetneq B_q$, we have $A_p\cap B_q\neq \emptyset$. Bernáth and Gerbner determined the largest cardinality of such families. They also introduced strongly $(p,q)$-chain intersecting families, where $A_p\cap B_1\neq \emptyset$ and totally $(p,q)$-chain intersecting families, where $A_1\cap B_1\neq \emptyset$. They obtained some pa…
Let $\mathcal{A}\subseteq{[n]\choose a}$ and $\mathcal{B}\subseteq{[n]\choose b}$ be two families of subsets of $[n]$, we say $\mathcal{A}$ and $\mathcal{B}$ are cross-intersecting if $A\cap B\neq \emptyset$ for all $A\in\mathcal{A}$, $B\in\mathcal{B}$. In this paper, we study cross-intersecting families in the multi-part setting. By characterizing the independent sets of vertex-transitive graphs and their direct products, we determine the sizes and structures of maximum-sized multi-part cross-intersecting families. This generalizes the results of Hilton's and Frankl--Tohushige's on cross-inte…
Let $k\ge d\ge 3$ be fixed. Let $\mathcal{F}$ be a $k$-uniform family on $[n]$. Then $\mathcal{F}$ is $(d,s)$-conditionally intersecting if it does not contain $d$ sets with union of size at most $s$ and empty intersection. Answering a question of Frankl, we present some structural results for families that are $(d,s)$-conditionally intersecting with $s\ge 2k+d-3$, and families that are $(k,2k)$-conditionally intersecting. As applications of our structural results, we present some new proofs to the upper bounds for the size of the following $k$-uniform families on $[n]$. (a) $(d,2k+d-3)$-condi…
Ellis and the third author showed, verifying a conjecture of Frankl, that any $3$-wise intersecting family of subsets of $\{1,2,\dots,n\}$ admitting a transitive automorphism group has cardinality $o(2^n)$, while a construction of Frankl demonstrates that the same conclusion need not hold under the weaker constraint of being regular. Answering a question of Cameron, Frankl and Kantor from 1989, we show that the restriction of admitting a transitive automorphism group may be relaxed significantly: we prove that any $3$-wise intersecting family of subsets of $\{1,2,\dots,n\}$ that is regular and…
In this paper, we describe the structure of maximal non-trivial uniform $t$-intersecting families with large size for finite sets. In the special case when $t=1$, our result gives rise to Kostochka and Mubayi's result in 2017.
Let $V$ be an $n$-dimensional vector space over a finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$. In this paper we describe the structure of maximal non-trivial $t$-intersecting families of $k$-dimensional subspaces of $V$ with large size. We also determine the non-trivial $t$-intersecting families with maximum size. In the special case when $t=1$ our result gives rise to the well-known Hilton-Milner Theorem for vector spaces.
Let $t$, $r$, $k$ and $n$ be positive integers and $\mathcal{F}$ a family of $k$-subsets of an $n$-set $V$. The family $ \CF $ is $ r $-wise $ t $-intersecting if for any $ F_1, \ldots, F_r \in \CF $, we have $ \abs{\cap_{i = 1}^{r}F_i}\gs t $. An $ r $-wise $ t $-intersecting family of $ r + 1 $ sets $ \{T_1, \ldots, T_{r + 1}\} $ is called an $ (r + 1,t) $-triangle if $ |T_1 \cap \cdots \cap T_{r + 1}| \ls t - 1 $. In this paper, we prove that if $ n \gs n_0(r, t, k) $, then the $ r $-wise $ t $-intersecting family $ \CF \subseteq \binom{[n]}{k} $ containing the most $ (r + 1,t) $-triangles …
For a family $\mathcal{F}$ of subsets of $\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$, let $\mathcal{D}(\mathcal{F}) = \{F\setminus G: F, G \in \mathcal{F}\}$ be the collection of all (setwise) differences of $\mathcal{F}$. The family $\mathcal{F}$ is called a $t$-intersecting family, if for some positive integer $t$ and any two members $F, G \in \mathcal{F}$ we have $|F\cap G| \geq t$. The family $\mathcal{F}$ is simply called intersecting if $t=1$. Recently, Frankl proved an upper bound on the size of $\mathcal{D}(\mathcal{F})$ for the intersecting families $\mathcal{F}$. In this note we extend the result of Frankl t…
The profile vector of a family $\mathcal{F}$ of subsets of an $n$-element set is $(f_0,f_1, \ldots, f_n)$ where $f_i$ denotes the number of the $i$-element members of $\mathcal{F}$. In this paper we determine the extreme points of the set of profile vectors for the class of non-trivial intersecting families.
Let $\mathcal G$ be a family of subsets of an $n$-element set. The family $\mathcal G$ is called $3$-wise $t$-intersecting if the intersection of any three subsets in $\mathcal G$ is of size at least $t$. For a real number $p\in(0,1)$ we define the measure of the family by the sum of $p^{|G|}(1-p)^{n-|G|}$ over all $G\in\mathcal G$. We prove that if $t\geq 15$ and $p\leq 2/(\sqrt{4t+9}-1)$ then $p^t$ is the maximum measure of $3$-wise $t$-intersecting families, and the bound for $p$ is sharp. We also present the corresponding stability result for shifted families.
Two perfect matchings $P$ and $Q$ of the complete graph on $2k$ vertices are said to be set-wise $t$-intersecting if there exist edges $P_{1}, \cdots, P_{t}$ in $P$ and $Q_{1}, \cdots, Q_{t}$ in $Q$ such that the union of edges $P_{1}, \cdots, P_{t}$ has the same set of vertices as the union of $Q_{1}, \cdots, Q_{t}$ has. In this paper we prove an extension of the famous Erdős-Ko-Rado (EKR) theorem to set-wise $2$-intersecting families of perfect matching on all values of $k$, and we conjecture similar statement for all $t\geq 2$.
O. Einstein (2008) proved Bollobás-type theorems on intersecting families of ordered sets of finite sets and subspaces. Unfortunately, we report that the proof of a theorem on ordered sets of subspaces had a mistake. We prove two weaker variants.
We consider families of k-subsets of the standard n-set. Two families F, G are said to be cross-intersecting if every member of F has non-empty intersection with every member of G. A family is called non-trivial if the intersection of all its members is empty. Supposing that F and G are non-trivial and cross-intersecting, we determine the maximum of |F|+|G|. For the proof a strengthened version of the so-called shifting technique is introduced. The corresponding problem for families of different uniformities is solved as well.
Given integers $r\geq 2$ and $n,t\geq 1$ we call families $\mathcal{F}_1,\dots,\mathcal{F}_r\subseteq\mathscr{P}([n])$ $r$-cross $t$-intersecting if for all $F_i\in\mathcal{F}_i$, $i\in[r]$, we have $\vert\bigcap_{i\in[r]}F_i\vert\geq t$. We obtain a strong generalisation of the classic Hilton-Milner theorem on cross intersecting families. In particular, we determine the maximum of $\sum_{j\in [r]}\vert\mathcal{F}_j\vert$ for $r$-cross $t$-intersecting families in the cases when these are $k$-uniform families or arbitrary subfamilies of $\mathscr{P}([n])$. Only some special cases of these resu…
Denote the collection of all $k$-flats in $AG(n,\mathbb{F}_q)$ by $\mathscr{M}(k,n)$. Let $\mathscr{F}_1\subset\mathscr{M}(k_1,n)$ and $\mathscr{F}_2\subset\mathscr{M}(k_2,n)$ satisfy $\dim(F_1\cap F_2)\ge t$ for any $F_1\in\mathscr{F}_1$ and $F_2\in\mathscr{F}_2$. We say they are cross $t$-intersecting families. Moreover, we say they are trivial if each member of them contains a fixed $t$-flats in $AG(n,\mathbb{F}_q)$. In this paper, we show that cross $t$-intersecting families with maximum product of sizes are trivial. We also describe the structure of non-trivial $t$-intersecting families w…
We say a family of sets is intersecting if any two of its sets intersect, and we say it is trivially intersecting if there is an element which appears in every set of the family. In this paper we study the maximum size of a non-trivially intersecting family in a natural "multi-part" setting. Here the ground set is divided into parts, and one considers families of sets whose intersection with each part is of a prescribed size. Our work is motivated by classical results in the single-part setting due to Erdős, Ko and Rado, and Hilton and Milner, and by a theorem of Frankl concerning intersecting…
We consider a problem of maximizing the product of the sizes of two uniform cross-$t$-intersecting families of sets. We show that the value of this maximum is at most polynomially larger (in the size of a ground set) than a quantity conjectured by Hirschorn in 2008. At the same time, we observe that it can be strictly bigger.
The extremal problems regarding the maximum possible size of intersecting families of various combinatorial objects have been extensively studied. In this paper, we investigate supersaturation extensions, which in this context ask for the minimum number of disjoint pairs that must appear in families larger than the extremal threshold. We study the minimum number of disjoint pairs in families of permutations and in $k$-uniform set families, and determine the structure of the optimal families. Our main tool is a removal lemma for disjoint pairs. We also determine the typical structure of $k$-uni…
Two sets $\mathscr{A}$ and $\mathscr{B}$ are said to be cross-intersecting if $X\cap Y\neq\emptyset$ for all $X\in\mathscr{A}$ and $Y\in\mathscr{B}$. Given two cross-intersecting Sperner families (or antichains) $\mathscr{A}$ and $\mathscr{B}$ of $\mathbb{N}_n$, we prove that $|\mathscr{A}|+|\mathscr{B}|\le 2{{n}\choose{\lceil{n/2}\rceil}}$ if $n$ is odd, and $|\mathscr{A}|+|\mathscr{B}|\le {{n}\choose{n/2}}+{{n}\choose{(n/2)+1}}$ if $n$ is even. Furthermore, all extremal and almost-extremal families for $\mathscr{A}$ and $\mathscr{B}$ are determined.
For an integer $d \geq 2$, a family $\mathcal{F}$ of sets is $\textit{$d$-wise intersecting}$ if for any distinct sets $A_1,A_2,\dots,A_d \in \mathcal{F}$, $A_1 \cap A_2 \cap \dots \cap A_d \neq \emptyset$, and $\textit{non-trivial}$ if $\bigcap \mathcal{F} = \emptyset$. Hilton and Milner conjectured that for $k \geq d \geq 2$ and large enough $n$, the extremal non-trivial $d$-wise intersecting family of $k$-element subsets of $[n]$ is one of the following two families: \begin{align*} &\mathcal{H}(k,d) = \{A \in \binom{[n]}{k} : [d-1] \subset A, A \cap [d,k+1] \neq \emptyset\} \cup \{[k+1] \se…
Mubayi's Conjecture states that if $\mathcal{F}$ is a family of $k$-sized subsets of $[n] = \{1,\ldots,n\}$ which, for $k \geq d \geq 2$, satisfies $A_1 \cap\cdots\cap A_d \neq \emptyset$ whenever $|A_1 \cup\cdots\cup A_d| \leq 2k$ for all distinct sets $A_1,\ldots,A_d \in\mathcal{F}$, then $|\mathcal{F}|\leq \binom{n-1}{k-1}$, with equality occurring only if $\mathcal{F}$ is the family of all $k$-sized subsets containing some fixed element. This paper proves that Mubayi's Conjecture is true for all families that are invariant with respect to shifting; indeed, these families satisfy a stronger…
Let $\mathscr{P}$ be a symplectic polar space over a finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$, and $\mathscr{P}_m$ denote the set of all $m$-dimensional subspaces in $\mathscr{P}$. We say a $t$-intersecting subfamily of $\mathscr{P}_m$ is trivial if there exists a $t$-dimensional subspace contained in each member of this family. In this paper, we determine the structure of maximum sized non-trivial $t$-intersecting subfamilies of $\mathscr{P}_m$.
For positive integers $n$ and $r$ such that $r \leq \lfloor n/2\rfloor$, let $X$ be a set of $n$ elements and let $\binom{X}{r}$ be the family of all $r$-subsets of $X$. Two sub-families $\mathcal{A}$ and $\mathcal{B}$ of $\binom{X}{r}$ are called cross intersecting if $A \cap B \neq \emptyset$ for all $A \in \mathcal{A}$ and $B \in \mathcal{B}$. One of main tools in the study of extremal set theory, and cross intersecting families in particular, is compression operation. In this paper, we give an example of cross intersecting families $\mathcal{A}$ and $\mathcal{B}$ that the compression opera…
Let $V$ be an $n$-dimensional vector space over the finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$, and ${V\brack k}$ denote the family of all $k$-dimensional subspaces of $V$. The families $\mathcal{F}_1\subseteq{V\brack k_1},\mathcal{F}_2\subseteq{V\brack k_2},\ldots,\mathcal{F}_r\subseteq{V\brack k_r}$ are said to be $r$-cross $t$-intersecting if $\dim(F_1\cap F_2\cap\cdots\cap F_r)\geq t$ for all $F_i\in\mathcal{F}_i,\ 1\leq i\leq r.$ The $r$-cross $t$-intersecting families $\mathcal{F}_1$, $\mathcal{F}_2,\ldots,\mathcal{F}_r$ are said to be non-trivial if $\dim(\cap_{1\leq i\leq r}\cap_{F\in\mathcal{F}_i}F)…
For positive integers $n,r,k$ with $n\ge r$ and $k\ge2$, a set $\{(x_1,y_1),(x_2,y_2),\dots,(x_r,y_r)\}$ is called a $k$-signed $r$-set on $[n]$ if $x_1,\dots,x_r$ are distinct elements of $[n]$ and $y_1\dots,y_r\in[k]$. We say a $t$-intersecting family consisting of $k$-signed $r$-sets on $[n]$ is trivial if each member of this family contains a fixed $k$-signed $t$-set. In this paper, we determine the structure of large maximal non-trivial $t$-intersecting families. In particular, we characterize the non-trivial $t$-intersecting families with maximum size for $t\ge2$, extending a Hilton-Miln…
In this short note, we address two problems in extremal set theory regarding intersecting families. The first problem is a question posed by Kupavskii: is it true that given two disjoint cross-intersecting families $\mathcal{A}, \mathcal{B} \subset \binom{[n]}{k}$, they must satisfy $\min\{|\mathcal{A}|, |\mathcal{B}|\} \le \frac{1}{2} \binom{n-1}{k-1}$? We give an affirmative answer for $n \ge 2k^2$, and construct families showing that this range is essentially the best one could hope for, up to a constant factor. The second problem is a conjecture of Frankl. It states that for $n \ge 3k$, th…
A perfect matching in the complete graph on $2k$ vertices is a set of edges such that no two edges have a vertex in common and every vertex is covered exactly once. Two perfect matchings are said to be $t$-intersecting if they have at least $t$ edges in common. The main result in this paper is an extension of the famous Erdős-Ko-Rado (EKR) theorem \cite{EKR} to 2-intersecting families of perfect matchings for all values of $k$. Specifically, for $k\geq 3$ a set of 2-intersecting perfect matchings in $K_{2k}$ of maximum size has $(2k-5)(2k-7)\cdots (1)$ perfect matchings.
A family $\mathcal{F}$ of subsets of $\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$ is called a $t$-intersecting family if $|F\cap G| \geq t$ for any two members $F, G \in \mathcal{F}$ and for some positive integer $t$. If $t=1$, then we call the family $\mathcal{F}$ to be intersecting. Define the set $\mathcal{I}(\mathcal{F}) = \{F\cap G: F, G \in \mathcal{F} \text{ and } F \neq G\}$ to be the collection of all distinct intersections of $\mathcal{F}$. Frankl et al. proved an upper bound for the size of $\mathcal{I}(\mathcal{F})$ of intersecting families $\mathcal{F}$ of $k$-subsets of $\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$. Their theorem h…
Let $V$ be an $(n+\ell)$-dimensional vector space over a finite field, and $W$ a fixed $\ell$-dimensional subspace of $V$. Write ${V\brack n,0}$ to be the set of all $n$-dimensional subspaces $U$ of $V$ satisfying $\dim(U\cap W)=0$. A family $\mathcal{F}\subseteq{V\brack n,0}$ is $t$-intersecting if $\dim(A\cap B)\geq t$ for all $A,B\in\mathcal{F}$. A $t$-intersecting family $\mathcal{F}\subseteq{V\brack n,0}$ is called non-trivial if $\dim(\cap_{F\in\mathcal{F}}F)<t$. In this paper, we describe the structure of non-trivial $t$-intersecting families of ${V\brack n,0}$ with large size. In parti…
A family $\mathcal{F}$ on ground set $[n]:=\{1,2,\ldots, n\}$ is maximal $k$-wise intersecting if every collection of at most $k$ sets in $\mathcal{F}$ has non-empty intersection, and no other set can be added to $\mathcal{F}$ while maintaining this property. In 1974, Erdős and Kleitman asked for the minimum size of a maximal $k$-wise intersecting family. We answer their question for $k=3$ and sufficiently large $n$. We show that the unique minimum family is obtained by partitioning the ground set $[n]$ into two sets $A$ and $B$ with almost equal sizes and taking the family consisting of all t…
A family $\mathcal{F}$ on ground set $\{1,2,\ldots, n\}$ is maximal $k$-wise intersecting if every collection of $k$ sets in $\mathcal{F}$ has non-empty intersection, and no other set can be added to $\mathcal{F}$ while maintaining this property. Erdős and Kleitman asked for the minimum size of a maximal $k$-wise intersecting family. Complementing earlier work of Hendrey, Lund, Tompkins and Tran, who answered this question for $k=3$ and large even $n$, we answer it for $k=3$ and large odd $n$. We show that the unique minimum family is obtained by partitioning the ground set into two sets $A$ a…
Let $\mathscr{P}$ be a symplectic polar space over a finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$, and $\mathscr{P}_m$ denote the collection of all $k$-dimensional totally isotropic subspace in $\mathscr{P}$. Let $\mathscr{F}_1\subset\mathscr{P}_{m_1}$ and $\mathscr{F}_2\subset\mathscr{P}_{m_2}$ satisfy $\dim(F_1\cap F_2)\ge t$ for any $F_1\in\mathscr{F}_1$ and $F_2\in\mathscr{F}_2$. We say they are cross $t$-intersecting families. Moreover, we say they are trivial if each member of them contains a fixed $t$-dimensional totally isotropic subspace. In this paper, we show that cross $t$-intersecting families wit…
