In an earlier work we described Gröbner bases of the ideal of polynomials over a field, which vanish on the set of characteristic vectors $\mathbf{v} \in \{0,1\}^n$ of the complete $d$ unifom set family over the ground set $[n]$. In particular, it turns out that the standard monomials of the above ideal are {\em ballot monomials}. We give here a partial extension of the latter fact. We prove that the lexicographic standard monomials for linear Sperner systems are also ballot monomials. A set family is a linear Sperner system if the characteristic vectors satisfy a linear equation $a_1v_1+\cdots +a_nv_n=k$, where $0<a_q\leq a_2\leq \cdots \leq a_n$ and $k$ are integers. As an application, we confirm a conjecture of Frankl for linear Sperner systems.
A family $\cF \subseteq 2^{[n]}$ saturates the monotone decreasing property $\cP$ if $\cF$ satisfies $\cP$ and one cannot add any set to $\cF$ such that property $\cP$ is still satisfied by the resulting family. We address the problem of finding the minimum size of a family saturating the $k$-Sperner property and the minimum size of a family that saturates the Sperner property and that consists only of $l$-sets and $(l+1)$-sets.
Aydinian et al. [J. Combinatorial Theory A 118(2)(2011), 702-725] substituted the usual BLYM inequality for L-Sperner families with a set of M inequalities for $(m_1,m_2,...,m_M;L_1,L_2,...,L_M)$ type M-part Sperner families and showed that if all inequalities hold with equality, then the family is homogeneous. Aydinian et al. [Australasian J. Comb. 48(2010), 133-141] observed that all inequalities hold with equality if and only if the transversal of the Sperner family corresponds to a simple mixed orthogonal array with constraint M, strength M-1, using $m_i+1$ symbols in the $i^{\text{th}}$ c…
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.
A reconstruction problem is formulated for Sperner systems, and infinite families of nonreconstructible Sperner systems are presented. This has an application to a reconstruction problem for functions of several arguments and identification minors. Sperner systems being representations of certain monotone functions, infinite families of nonreconstructible functions are thus obtained. The clones of Boolean functions are completely classified in regard to reconstructibility.
Let \cal A be a family of subsets of an n-set such that \cal A does not contain distinct sets A and B with |A\B| = 2|B\A|. How large can \cal A be? Our aim in this note is to determine the maximum size of such an \cal A. This answers a question of Kalai. We also give some related results and conjectures.
Given a graph G, let Q(G) denote the collection of all independent (edge-free) sets of vertices in G. We consider the problem of determining the size of a largest antichain in Q(G). When G is the edge-less graph, this problem is resolved by Sperner's Theorem. In this paper, we focus on the case where G is the path of length n-1, proving the size of a maximal antichain is of the same order as the size of a largest layer of Q(G).
Let $p$ and $q$ be two nonnegative integers with $p+q>0$ and $n>0$. We call $\mathcal{F} \subset \mathcal{P}([n])$ a \textit{(p,q)-tilted Sperner family with patterns on [n]} if there are no distinct $F,G \in \mathcal{F}$ with: $$(i) \ \ p|F \setminus G|=q|G \setminus F|, \ \textrm{and}$$ $$(ii) \ f > g \ \textrm{for all} \ f \in F \setminus G \ \textrm{and} \ g \in G \setminus F.$$ Long (\cite{L}) proved that the cardinality of a (1,2)-tilted Sperner family with patterns on $[n]$ is $$O(e^{120\sqrt{\log n}}\ \frac{2^n}{\sqrt{n}}).$$ We improve and generalize this result, and prove that the ca…
A pair of families $(\cF,\cG)$ is said to be \emph{cross-Sperner} if there exists no pair of sets $F \in \cF, G \in \cG$ with $F \subseteq G$ or $G \subseteq F$. There are two ways to measure the size of the pair $(\cF,\cG)$: with the sum $|\cF|+|\cG|$ or with the product $|\cF|\cdot |\cG|$. We show that if $\cF, \cG \subseteq 2^{[n]}$, then $|\cF||\cG| \le 2^{2n-4}$ and $|\cF|+|\cG|$ is maximal if $\cF$ or $\cG$ consists of exactly one set of size $\lceil n/2 \rceil$ provided the size of the ground set $n$ is large enough and both $\cF$ and $\cG$ are non-empty.
We say that a set system $\mathcal{F}\subseteq 2^{[n]}$ shatters a given set $S\subseteq [n]$ if $2^S= \{F~\cap~S:~F~\in~\mathcal{F}\}$. The Sauer-Shelah lemma states that in general, a set system $\mathcal{F}$ shatters at least $|\mathcal{F}|$ sets. Here we concentrate on the case of equality. A set system is called \emph{shattering-extremal} if it shatters exactly $|\mathcal{F}|$ sets. A conjecture of Rónyai and the second author and of Litman and Moran states that if a family is shattering-extremal then one can add a set to it and the resulting family is still shattering-extremal. Here we p…
A family $\cF\subseteq 2^{[n]}$ of sets is said to be $l$-trace $k$-Sperner if for any $l$-subset $L \subset [n]$ the family $\cF|_L=\{F|_L:F \in \cF\}=\{F \cap L: F \in \cF\}$ is $k$-Sperner, i.e. does not contain any chain of length $k+1$. The maximum size that an $l$-trace $k$-Sperner family $\cF \subseteq 2^{[n]}$ can have is denoted by $f(n,k,l)$. For pairs of integers $l<k$, if in a family $\cG$ every pair of sets satisfies $||G_1|-|G_2||<k-l$, then $\cG$ possesses the $(n-l)$-trace $k$-Sperner property. Among such families, the largest one is $\cF_0=\{F\in 2^{[n]}: \lfloor \frac{n-(k-l)…
Balanced Sperner families via the topological Tverberg theorem
Research Center for Mathematics and Interdisciplinary Sciences, Shandong University（山东大学数学交叉科学研究中心）；Frontiers Science Center for Nonlinear Expectations, Ministry of Education（教育部非线性期望前沿科学中心）；School of Mathematical Sciences, Zhejiang University（浙江大学数学科学学院）
A central result in extremal set theory is the celebrated theorem of Sperner from 1928, which gives the size of the largest family of subsets of [n] not containing a 2-chain. Erdos extended this theorem to determine the largest family without a k-chain. Erdos and Katona, followed by Kleitman, asked how many chains must appear in families with sizes larger than the corresponding extremal bounds. In 1966, Kleitman resolved this question for 2-chains, showing that the number of such chains is minimized by taking sets as close to the middle level as possible. Moreover, he conjectured the extremal …
A family of sets $\mathcal{F} \subseteq 2^{[n]}$ is defined to be $l$-trace $k$-Sperner if for any $l$-subset $L$ of $[n]$ the family of traces $\mathcal{F}|_L=\{F \cap L: F \in \mathcal{F}\}$ does not contain any chain of length $k+1$. In this paper we prove that for any positive integers $l',k$ with $l'<k$ if $\mathcal{F}$ is $(n-l')$-trace $k$-Sperner, then $|\mathcal{F}| \le (k-l'+o(1))\binom{n}{\lfloor n/2\rfloor}$ and this bound is asymptotically tight.
A family of sets is called $r$-\emph{cover free} if no set in the family is contained in the union of $r$ (or less) other sets in the family. A $1$-cover free family is simply an antichain with respect to set inclusion. Thus, Sperner's classical result determines the maximal cardinality of a $1$-cover free family of subsets of an $n$-element set. Estimating the maximal cardinality of an $r$-cover free family of subsets of an $n$-element set for $r>1$ was also studied. In this note we are interested in the following probabilistic variant of this problem. Let $S_0,S_1,\ldots, S_r$ be independent…
A set system $\mathcal{F}$ is $t$-\textit{intersecting}, if the size of the intersection of every pair of its elements has size at least $t$. A set system $\mathcal{F}$ is $k$-\textit{Sperner}, if it does not contain a chain of length $k+1$. Our main result is the following: Suppose that $k$ and $t$ are fixed positive integers, where $n+t$ is even with $t\le n$ and $n$ is large enough. If $\mathcal{F}\subseteq 2^{[n]}$ is a $t$-intersecting $k$-Sperner family, then $|\mathcal{F}|$ has size at most the size of the sum of $k$ layers, of sizes $(n+t)/2,\ldots, (n+t)/2+k-1$. This bound is best pos…
We asymptotically determine the size of the largest family F of subsets of {1,...,n} not containing a given poset P if the Hasse diagram of P is a tree. This is a qualitative generalization of several known results including Sperner's theorem.
For each poset $H$ whose Hasse diagram is a tree of height $k$, we show that the largest size of a family $\cF$ of subsets of $[n]=\{1,..., n\}$ not containing $H$ as an induced subposet is asymptotic to $(k-1){n\choose \fl{n/2}}$. This extends the result of Bukh \cite{bukh}, which in turn generalizes several known results including Sperner's theorem.
The two part Sperner theorem of Katona and Kleitman states that if $X$ is an $n$-element set with partition $X_1 \cup X_2$, and $\cF$ is a family of subsets of $X$ such that no two sets $A, B \in \cF$ satisfy $A \subset B$ (or $B \subset A$) and $A \cap X_i=B \cap X_i$ for some $i$, then $|\cF| \le {n \choose \lfloor n/2 \rfloor}$. We consider variations of this problem by replacing the Sperner property with the intersection property and considering families that satisfiy various combinations of these properties on one or both parts $X_1$, $X_2$. Along the way, we prove the following new resul…
A well-known theorem of Sperner describes the largest collections of subsets of an $n$-element set none of which contains another set from the collection. Generalising this result, Erdős characterised the largest families of subsets of an $n$-element set that do not contain a chain of sets $A_1 \subset \dotsc \subset A_k$ of an arbitrary length $k$. The extremal families contain all subsets whose cardinalities belong to an interval of length $k-1$ centred at $n/2$. In a far-reaching extension of Sperner's theorem, Kleitman determined the smallest number of chains of length two that have to app…
Counterexamples to the Balogh-Linz-Patkós Conjecture
School of Mathematics, Nanjing University（南京大学数学系）；School of Mathematics and Statistics, Central China Normal University（华中师范大学数学与统计学院）；Faculty of Environment and Information Sciences, Yokohama National University（横滨国立大学环境信息学部）
A \emph{chain} in the unit $n$-cube is a set $C\subset [0,1]^n$ such that for every $\mathbf{x}=(x_1,\ldots,x_n)$ and $\mathbf{y}=(y_1,\ldots,y_n)$ in $C$ we either have $x_i\le y_i$ for all $i\in [n]$, or $x_i\ge y_i$ for all $i\in [n]$. We show that the $1$-dimensional Hausdorff measure of a chain in the unit $n$-cube is at most $n$, and that the bound is sharp. Given this result, we consider the problem of maximising the $n$-dimensional Lebesgue measure of a measurable set $A\subset [0,1]^n$ subject to the constraint that it satisfies $\mathcal{H}^1(A\cap C) \le κ$ for all chains $C\subset …
A coloured version of classic extremal problems dates back to Erdős and Rothschild, who in 1974 asked which $n$-vertex graph has the maximum number of 2-edge-colourings without monochromatic triangles. They conjectured that the answer is simply given by the largest triangle-free graph. Since then, this new class of coloured extremal problems has been extensively studied by various researchers. In this paper we pursue the Erdős--Rothschild versions of Sperner's Theorem, the classic result in extremal set theory on the size of the largest antichain in the Boolean lattice, and Erdős' extension to…
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.
We construct an intersecting $k$-family of transversal size $\lceil \frac{k+1}{2} \rceil$ and length $k+1$ and study some of its properties. We use this family to prove that $q(4) = 9$. We also construct a $k$-family for $k = 2^m - 1$ of length $2k+1$ and transversal size at least $(2k+1)/3$.
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…
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…
Paul Erdős and László Lovász established by means of an example that there exists a maximal intersecting family of $k-$sets with approximately $(e-1)k!$ blocks. László Lovász conjectured that their example is best known example which has the maximum number of blocks. Later it was disproved. But the quest for such examples remain valid till this date. In this short note, by computing transversal size of a certain series of uniform intersecting families constructed over the cycle graph, we provide an example which has more than $(\frac{k}{2})^{k-1}$ (approximately) blocks.
Let H = (H,V) be a hypergraph with edge set H and vertex set V. Then hypergraph H is invertible iff there exists a permutation pi of V such that for all E belongs to H(edges) intersection of(pi(E) and E)=0. H is invertibility critical if H is not invertible but every hypergraph obtained by removing an edge from H is invertible. The degree of H is d if |{E belongs to H(edges)|x belongs to E}| =< d for each x belongs to V Let i(d) be the maximum number of edges of an invertibility critical hypergraph of degree d. Theorem: i(d) =< (d-1) {2d-1 choose d} + 1. The proof of this result leads to the f…
Let N((r,w;d),t) denote the minimum number of points in a (r,w;d)-cover-free family having t blocks. Hajiabolhassan and Moazami (2012)[6] showed that the Hadamard conjecture is equivalent to confirm N((1,1;d)4d-1)=4d-1. Hence, it is a challenging and interesting problem to determine the exact value of N((r,w;d),t). In this paper, we determine the exact value of N((r,w;d),t) for every r, w, where r+w<t+1 and some d.
Consider a graph $G$ and a $k$-uniform hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$ on common vertex set $[n]$. We say that $\mathcal{H}$ is $G$-intersecting if for every pair of edges in $X,Y \in \mathcal{H}$ there are vertices $x \in X$ and $y \in Y$ such that $x = y$ or $x$ and $y$ are joined by an edge in $G$. This notion was introduced by Bohman, Frieze, Ruszinkó and Thoma who proved a natural generalization of the Erdős-Ko-Rado Theorem for $G$-intersecting $k$-uniform hypergraphs for $G$ sparse and $k = O( n^{1/4} )$. In this note, we extend this result to $k = O\left( \sqrt{n} \right)$.
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.
The $t$-e.c. and pseudo-random property are typical properties of random graphs. In this note, we study the gap between them which has not been studied well. As a main result, we give the first explicit construction of infinite families of t-e.c. graphs which are not families of best possible pseudo-random graphs.
In this paper we introduce a set of sufficient criteria for the construction of relative hemisystems of the Hermitian space $\mathrm{H}(3,q^2)$, unifying all known infinite families. We use these conditions to provide new proofs of the existence of the known infinite families of relative hemisystems. Reproving these results has allowed us to find new relative hemisystems closely related to an infinite family of Cossidente's, and develop techniques that are likely to be useful in finding relative hemisystems in future.
The $\mathcal{N}$ poset consists of four distinct sets $W,X,Y,Z$ such that $W\subset X$, $Y\subset X$, and $Y\subset Z$ where $W$ is not necessarily a subset of $Z$. A family $\mathcal{F}$ as a subposet of the $n$-dimensional Boolean lattice, $\mathcal{B}_n$, is $\mathcal{N}$-free if it does not contain $\mathcal{N}$ as a subposet. Let $\text{La}(n, \mathcal{N})$ be the size of a largest $\mathcal{N}$-free family in $\mathcal{B}_n$. Katona and Tarján proved that $\text{La}(n,\mathcal{N})\geq {n \choose k}+A(n,4,k+1)$, where $k=\lfloor n/2\rfloor$ and $A(n, 4, k+1)$ is the size of a single-erro…
Some new infinite families of simple, indecomposable $m$-factorizations of the complete multigraph $λK_v$ are presented. Most of the constructions come from finite geometries.
New families of matroids are constructed in this note. These new fami- lies are derived from the concept of linearly independent set family (LISF) introduced by Eicker and Ewald [Linear Algebra and its Applications 388 (2004) 173-191]. The proposed construction generalizes in a natural way the well known class of vectorial matroids over a field.
The Grundy number of a graph $G$ is the maximum number of colors used by the First-Fit coloring of $G$ and is denoted by $Γ(G)$. Similarly, the ${\rm b}$-chromatic number ${\rm{b}}(G)$ of $G$ expresses the worst case behavior of another well-known coloring procedure i.e. color-dominating coloring of $G$. We obtain some families of graphs $\mathcal{F}$ for which there exists a function $f(x)$ such that $Γ(G)\leq f({\rm{b}}(G))$, for each graph $G$ from the family. Call any such family $(Γ,b)$-bounded family. We conjecture that the family of ${\rm b}$-monotone graphs is $(Γ,b)$-bounded and valid…
We give a simple argument showing that the number of edges in the intersection graph $G$ of a family of $n$ sets in the plane with a linear union-complexity is $O(ω(G)n)$. In particular, we prove $χ(G)\leq \text{col}(G)< 19ω(G)$ for intersection graph $G$ of a family of pseudo-discs, which improves a previous bound.
In this note, we give a precise construction of one of the families of $2$-designs arose from studying flag-transitive $2$-designs with parameters $(v,k,λ)$ whose replication numbers $r$ are coprime to $λ$. We show that for a given positive integer $q=2^{2n+1}\geq 8$, there exists a $2$-design with parameters $(q^{2}+1,q,q-1)$ and the replication number $q^{2}$ admitting the Suzuki group $\textsf{Sz(q)}$ as its automorphism group. We also construct a family of $2$-designs with parameters $(q^{2}+1,q(q-1),(q-1)(q^{2}-q-1))$ and the replication number $q^{2}(q-1)$ admitting the Suzuki groups $\t…
Let $\mathcal{A}_1,\ldots,\mathcal{A}_m$ be families of $k$-subsets of an $n$-set. Suppose that one cannot choose pairwise disjoint edges from $s+1$ distinct families. Subject to this condition we investigate the maximum of $|\mathcal{A}_1|+\ldots+|\mathcal{A}_m|$. Note that the subcase $m=s+1$, $\mathcal{A}_1=\ldots=\mathcal{A}_m$ is the Erdős Matching Conjecture, one of the most important open problems in extremal set theory. We provide some upper bounds, a general conjecture and its solution for the range $n\geq 4k^2s$.
The blocker $A^{*}$ of an antichain $A$ in a finite poset $P$ is the set of elements minimal with the property of having with each member of $A$ a common predecessor. The following is done: 1. The posets $P$ for which $A^{**}=A$ for all antichains are characterized. 2. The blocker $A^*$ of a symmetric antichain in the partition lattice is characterized. 3. Connections with the question of finding minimal size blocking sets for certain set families are discussed.
In this note, we describe a construction that leads to families of graphs whose critical groups are cyclic. For some of these families we are able to give a formula for the number of spanning trees of the graph, which then determines the group exactly. We also pose several open questions related to this work.
A family $F$ of graphs on a fixed set of $n$ vertices is called triangle-intersecting if for any $G_1,G_2 \in F$, the intersection $G_1 \cap G_2$ contains a triangle. More generally, for a fixed graph $H$, a family $F$ is $H$-intersecting if the intersection of any two graphs in $F$ contains a sub-graph isomorphic to $H$. In [D. Ellis, Y. Filmus, and E. Friedgut, Triangle-intersecting families of graphs, J. Eur. Math. Soc. 14 (2012), pp. 841--885], Ellis, Filmus and Friedgut proved a 36-year old conjecture of Simonovits and Sós stating that the maximal size of a triangle-intersecting family is…
These lecture notes provide an introduction to automorphism groups of graphs. Some special families of graphs are then discussed, especially the families of Cayley graphs generated by transposition sets.
