The classical Kruskal-Katona theorem gives a tight upper bound for the size of an $r$-uniform hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$ as a function of the size of its shadow. Its stability version was obtained by Keevash who proved that if the size of $\mathcal{H}$ is close to the maximum, then $\mathcal{H}$ is structurally close to a complete $r$-uniform hypergraph. We prove similar stability results for two classes of hypergraphs whose extremal properties have been investigated by many researchers: the cancellative hypergraphs and hypergraphs without expansion of cliques.
Approximations to the Kruskal-Katona theorem are stated and proven. These approximations are weaker than the theorem, but much easier to work with numerically.
A bound on consecutive clique numbers of graphs is established. This bound is evaluated and shown to often be much better than the bound of the Kruskal-Katona theorem. A bound on non-consecutive clique numbers is also proven.
A strong placement game $G$ played on a board $B$ is equivalent to a simplicial complex $Δ_{G,B}$. We look at weight games, a subclass of strong placement games, and introduce upper bounds on the number of positions with $i$ pieces in $G$, or equivalently the number of faces with $i$ vertices in $Δ_{G,B}$, which are reminiscent of the Kruskal-Katona bounds.
In graph theory, knowing the number of complete subgraphs with r vertices that a graph g has, limits the number of its complete subgraphs with s vertices, for s > r. A useful upper bound is provided by the Kruskal-Katona theorem, but this bound is often not tight. In this note, we add to the known cases where this bound is tight and begin an investigation of tight bounded graph sequences.
We present examples of flag homology spheres whose $γ$-vectors satisfy the Kruskal-Katona inequalities. This includes several families of well-studied simplicial complexes, including Coxeter complexes and the simplicial complexes dual to the associahedron and to the cyclohedron. In these cases, we construct explicit simplicial complexes whose $f$-vectors are the $γ$-vectors in question. In another direction, we show that if a flag $(d-1)$-sphere has at most $2d+2$ vertices its $γ$-vector satisfies the Kruskal-Katona inequalities. We conjecture that if $Δ$ is a flag homology sphere then $γ(Δ)$ …
We present a generalization of a version of the Kruskal-Katona theorem due to Lovasz. A shadow of a d-tuple (S_1,...,S_d) in binom{X}{r}^d consists of d-tuples (S_1',...,S_d') in binom{X}{r-1}^d obtained by removing one element from each of S_i. We show that if a family F in binom{X}{r}^d has size |F|=binom{x}{r}^d for a real number x>=r, then the shadow of F has size at least binom{x}{r-1}^d.
In graph theory, knowing the number of complete subgraphs with r vertices that a graph g has, limits the number of its complete subgraphs with s vertices, for s > r. A useful upper bound is provided by the Kruskal-Katona theorem, but this bound is often not tight. In this note, we add to the known cases where this bound is tight and also investigate cases where it is not. Finally we look at a useful technique for actually finding the numbers of complete subgraphs of a graph.
A forest is the clique complex of a strongly chordal graph and a quasi-forest is the clique complex of a chordal graph. Kruskal--Katona type theorems for forests, quasi-forests, pure forests and pure quasi-forests will be presented. In addition, it will be shown that a quasi-forest is shellable if and only if its $h$-vector $(h_0, h_1, h_2, ...)$ satisfies $h_i = 0$ for $i > 1$.
The Kruskal Katona theorem was proved in the 1960s. In the theorem, we are given an integer $r$ and families of sets $\mathcal{A}\subset \mathbb{N}^{(r)}$ and $\mathcal{B}\subset\mathbb{N}^{(r-1)}$ such that for every $A\in\mathcal{A}$, every subset of $A$ of size $r-1$ is in $\mathcal{B}$. We are interested in finding the mimimum size of $b=|\mathcal{B}|$ given fixed values of $r$ and $a=|\mathcal{A}|$. The Kruskal Katona theorem states that this mimimum occurs when both $\mathcal{A}$ and $\mathcal{B}$ are initial segments of the colexicographic ordering. The Kruskal Katona theorem is very us…
We prove some properties of the Kruskal-Katona function, and apply to the following variation of cross-intersecting antichains. Let $n\ge 4$ be an even integer and $\mathscr{A}$ and $\mathscr{B}$ be two cross-intersecting antichains of $\mathbb{N}_n$ with at most $k$ disjoint pairs, i.e. for all $A_i\in \mathscr{A}$, $B_j\in\mathscr{B}$, $A_i\cap B_j=\emptyset$ only if $i=j\le k$. We prove a best possible upper bound on $|\mathscr{A}|+|\mathscr{B}|$. Furthermore, we show that the extremal families contain only $\frac{n}{2}$ and $(\frac{n}{2}+1)$-sets.
Inspired by the Kruskal-Katona theorem a minimization problem is studied, where the role of the shadow is replaced by the image of the action of the monoid of increasing functions. One of our main results shows that compressed sets are a solution to this problem. Several applications to simplicial complexes are discussed.
For a set $A\subseteq\left[k\right]^{n}=\left\{ 0,\dots,k-1\right\} ^{n}$, we define the $d$-shadow of $A$ to be the set of points obtained by flipping to zero one of the non-zero coordinates of some point in $A$. Let $\left[k\right]_{r}^{n}$ be the set of those points in $\left[k\right]^{n}$ with exactly $r$ non-zero coordinates. Given the size of $A$, how should we choose $A\subseteq\left[k\right]_{r}^{n}$ so as to minimise the $d$-shadow? Note that the case $k=2$ is answered by the Kruskal-Katona theorem. Our aim in this paper is to give an exact answer to this question. In particular, we s…
The well-known Kruskal-Katona theorem in combinatorics says that (under mild conditions) every monotone Boolean function $f: \{0,1\}^n \to \{0,1\}$ has a nontrivial "density increment." This means that the fraction of inputs of Hamming weight $k+1$ for which $f=1$ is significantly larger than the fraction of inputs of Hamming weight $k$ for which $f=1.$ We prove an analogous statement for convex sets. Informally, our main result says that (under mild conditions) every convex set $K \subset \mathbb{R}^n$ has a nontrivial density increment. This means that the fraction of the radius-$r$ sphere t…
A fundamental result in extremal set theory is Katona's shadow intersection theorem, which extends the Kruskal-Katona theorem by giving a lower bound on the size of the shadow of an intersecting family of $k$-sets in terms of its size. We improve this classical result and a related result of Ahlswede, Aydinian, and Khachatrian by proving tight bounds for families that can be quite small. For example, when $k=3$ our result is sharp for all families with $n$ points and at least $3n-7$ triples. Katona's theorem was extended by Frankl to families with matching number $s$. We improve Frankl's resul…
A family F is intersecting if any two members have a nonempty intersection. Erdos, Ko, and Rado showed that |F|\leq {n-1\choose k-1} holds for an intersecting family of k-subsets of [n]:={1,2,3,...,n}, n\geq 2k. For n> 2k the only extremal family consists of all k-subsets containing a fixed element. Here a new proof is presented. It is even shorter than the classical proof of Katona using cyclic permutations, or the one found by Daykin applying the Kruskal-Katona theorem.
Let $\text{Tr}(n,m,k)$ denote the largest number of distinct projections onto $k$ coordinates guaranteed in any family of $m$ binary vectors of length $n$. The classical Sauer-Perles-Shelah Lemma implies that $\text{Tr}(n, n^r, k) = 2^k$ for $k \le r$. While determining $\text{Tr}(n,n^r,k)$ precisely for general $k$ seems hopeless even for constant $r$, estimating it, and more generally estimating the function $\text{Tr}(n,m,k)$ for all range of the parameters, remains a widely open problem with connections to important questions in computer science and combinatorics. Here we essentially resol…
We prove a minimum degree version of the Kruskal--Katona theorem: given $d\ge 1/4$ and a triple system $F$ on $n$ vertices with minimum degree at least $d\binom n2$, we obtain asymptotically tight lower bounds for the size of its shadow. Equivalently, for $t\ge n/2-1$, we asymptotically determine the minimum size of a graph on $n$ vertices, in which every vertex is contained in at least $\binom t2$ triangles. This can be viewed as a variant of the Rademacher--Turán problem.
We prove a stability version of Harper's cube vertex isoperimetric inequality, showing that subsets of the cube with vertex boundary close to the minimum possible are close to (generalised) Hamming balls. Furthermore, we obtain a local stability result for ball-like sets that gives a sharp estimate for the vertex boundary in terms of the distance from a ball, and so our stability result is essentially tight (modulo a non-monotonicity phenomenon). We also give similar results for the Kruskal--Katona Theorem and applications to new stability versions of some other results in Extremal Combinatori…
In 1973 Bermond, Germa, Heydemann and Sotteau conjectured that if $n$ divides $\binom{n}{k}$, then the complete $k$-uniform hypergraph on $n$ vertices has a decomposition into Hamilton Berge cycles. Here a Berge cycle consists of an alternating sequence $v_1,e_1,v_2,\dots,v_n,e_n$ of distinct vertices $v_i$ and distinct edges $e_i$ so that each $e_i$ contains $v_i$ and $v_{i+1}$. So the divisibility condition is clearly necessary. In this note, we prove that the conjecture holds whenever $k \ge 4$ and $n \ge 30$. Our argument is based on the Kruskal-Katona theorem. The case when $k=3$ was alre…
We give a short new proof of a version of the Kruskal-Katona theorem due to Lovász. Our method can be extended to a stability result, describing the approximate structure of configurations that are close to being extremal, which answers a question of Mubayi. This in turn leads to another combinatorial proof of a stability theorem for intersecting families, which was originally obtained by Friedgut using spectral techniques and then sharpened by Keevash and Mubayi by means of a purely combinatorial result of Frankl. We also give an algebraic perspective on these problems, giving yet another pro…
Let $\mathcal{F}$ be a family of $r$-uniform hypergraphs. The feasible region $Ω(\mathcal{F})$ of $\mathcal{F}$ is the set of points $(x,y)$ in the unit square such that there exists a sequence of $\mathcal{F}$-free $r$-uniform hypergraphs whose edge density approaches $x$ and whose shadow density approaches $y$. The feasible region provides a lot of combinatorial information, for example, the supremum of $y$ over all $(x,y) \in Ω(\mathcal{F})$ is the Turán density $π(\mathcal{F})$, and $Ω(\emptyset)$ gives the Kruskal-Katona theorem. We undertake a systematic study of $Ω(\mathcal{F})$, and pr…
Let $[n] = \{1, 2, \ldots, n\}$ and let $2^{[n]}$ be the collection of all subsets of $[n]$ ordered by inclusion. ${\cal C} \subseteq 2^{[n]}$ is a {\em cutset} if it meets every maximal chain in $2^{[n]}$, and the {\em width} of ${\cal C} \subseteq 2^{[n]}$ is the minimum number of chains in a chain decomposition of ${\cal C}$. Fix $0 \leq m \leq l \leq n$. What is the smallest value of $k$ such that there exists a cutset that consists only of subsets of sizes between $m$ and $l$, and such that it contains exactly $k$ subsets of size $i$ for each $m \leq i \leq l$? The answer, which we denote…
There has been interest recently in maximizing the number of independent sets in graphs. For example, the Kahn-Zhao theorem gives an upper bound on the number of independent sets in a $d$-regular graph. Similarly, it is a corollary of the Kruskal-Katona theorem that the lex graph has the maximum number of independent sets in a graph of fixed size and order. In this paper we solve two equivalent problems. The first is: what $3$-uniform hypergraph on a ground set of size $n$, having at least $t$ edges, has the most $2$-independent sets? Here a $2$--independent set is a subset of vertices contain…
Let $κ\in \mathbb{N}_+^\ell$ satisfy $κ_1 + \dots + κ_\ell = n$ and let $\mathcal{U}_κ$ denote the "multislice" of all strings $u$ in $[\ell]^n$ having exactly $κ_i$ coordinates equal to $i$, for all $i \in [\ell]$. Consider the Markov chain on $\mathcal{U}_κ$, where a step is a random transposition of two coordinates of $u$. We show that the log-Sobolev constant $ρ_κ$ for the chain satisfies $$(ρ_κ)^{-1} \leq n \sum_{i=1}^{\ell} \tfrac{1}{2} \log_2(4n/κ_i),$$ which is sharp up to constants whenever $\ell$ is constant. From this, we derive some consequences for small-set expansion and isoperim…
Let $C^{2k}_r$ be the $2k$-uniform hypergraph obtained by letting $P_1,...,P_r$ be pairwise disjoint sets of size $k$ and taking as edges all sets $P_i \cup P_j$ with $i \neq j$. This can be thought of as the `$k$-expansion' of the complete graph $K_r$: each vertex has been replaced with a set of size $k$. We determine the exact Turan number of $C^{2k}_3$ and the corresponding extremal hypergraph, thus confirming a conjecture of Frankl. Sidorenko has given an upper bound of $(r-2) / (r-1)$ for the Turán density of $C^{2k}_r$ for any $r$, and a construction establishing a matching lower bound w…
We consider the following generalization of the seminal Erdős-Ko-Rado theorem, due to Frankl. For some k>=2, let F be a k-wise intersecting family of r-subsets of an n element set X, i.e. for any k sets F1,...,Fk in F, their intersection is nonempty. If r <= ((k-1)n)/k, then |F|<= {n-1 \choose r-1}. We prove a stability version of this theorem, analogous to similar results of Dinur-Friedgut, Keevash-Mubayi and others for the Erdős-Ko-Rado theorem. The technique we use is a generalization of Katona's circle method, initially employed by Keevash, which uses expansion properties of a particular C…
Building on classical theorems of Sperner and Kruskal-Katona, we investigate antichains $\mathcal F$ in the Boolean lattice $B_n$ of all subsets of $[n]:=\{1,2,\dots,n\}$, where $\mathcal F$ is flat, meaning that it contains sets of at most two consecutive sizes, say $\mathcal F=\mathcal{A}\cup\mathcal{B}$, where $\mathcal{A}$ contains only $k$-subsets, while $\mathcal{B}$ contains only $(k-1)$-subsets. Moreover, we assume $\mathcal{A}$ consists of the first $m$ $k$-subsets in squashed (colexicographic) order, while $\mathcal{B}$ consists of all $(k-1)$-subsets not contained in the subsets in …
We address a supersaturation problem in the context of forbidden subposets. A family $\mathcal{F}$ of sets is said to contain the poset $P$ if there is an injection $i:P \rightarrow \mathcal{F}$ such that $p \le_P q$ implies $i(p) \subset i (q)$. The poset on four elements $a,b,c,d$ with $a,b \le c,d$ is called butterfly. The maximum size of a family $\mathcal{F} \subseteq 2^{[n]}$ that does not contain a butterfly is $Σ(n,2)=\binom{n}{\lfloor n/2 \rfloor}+\binom{n}{\lfloor n/2 \rfloor+1}$ as proved by De Bonis, Katona, and Swanepoel. We prove that if $\mathcal{F} \subseteq 2^{[n]}$ contains $…
