The Erdos-Ko-Rado theorem tells us how large an intersecting family of r-sets from an n-set can be, while results due to Lovasz and Tuza give bounds on the number of singletons that can occur as pairwise intersections of sets from such a family.
We consider a natural generalization of these problems. Given an intersecting family of r-sets from an n-set and 1\leq k \leq r, how many k-sets can occur as pairwise intersections of sets from the family? For k=r and k=1 this reduces to the problems described above. We answer this question exactly for all values of k and r, when n is sufficiently large. We also characterize the extremal families.
For a hypergraph $H$, define its intersection spectrum $I(H)$ as the set of all intersection sizes $|E\cap F|$ of distinct edges $E,F\in E(H)$. In their seminal paper from 1973 which introduced the local lemma, Erdős and Lovász asked: how large must the intersection spectrum of a $k$-uniform $3$-chromatic intersecting hypergraph be? They showed that such a hypergraph must have at least three intersection sizes, and conjectured that the size of the intersection spectrum tends to infinity with $k$. Despite the problem being reiterated several times over the years by Erdős and other researchers, …
Let $\mathcal{F},\mathcal{G}$ be two cross-intersecting families of $k$-subsets of $\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$. Let $\mathcal{F}\wedge \mathcal{G}$, $\mathcal{I}(\mathcal{F},\mathcal{G})$ denote the families of all intersections $F\cap G$ with $F\in \mathcal{F},G\in \mathcal{G}$, and all distinct intersections $F\cap G$ with $F\neq G, F\in \mathcal{F},G\in \mathcal{G}$, respectively. For a fixed $T\subset \{1,2,\ldots,n\}$, let $\mathcal{S}_T$ be the family of all $k$-subsets of $\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$ containing $T$. In the present paper, we show that $|\mathcal{F}\wedge \mathcal{G}|$ is maximized when $\m…
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 $k$, $t$ and $m$ be positive integers. A $k$-multiset of $[m]$ is a collection of $k$ integers from the set $\{1,...,m\}$ in which the integers can appear more than once. We use graph homomorphisms and existing theorems for intersecting and $t$-intersecting $k$-set systems to prove new results for intersecting and $t$-intersecting families of $k$-multisets. These results include a multiset version of the Hilton-Milner theorem and a theorem giving the size and structure of the largest $t$-intersecting family of $k$-multisets of an $m$-set when $m \leq 2k-t$.
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…
Two elements $g$ and $h$ of a permutation group $G$ acting on a set $V$ are said to be intersecting if $g(v) = h(v)$ for some $v \in V$. More generally, a subset ${\cal F}$ of $G$ is an intersecting set if every pair of elements of ${\cal F}$ is intersecting. The intersection density $ρ(G)$ of a transitive permutation group $G$ is the maximum value of the quotient $|{\cal F}|/|G_v|$ where ${\cal F}$ runs over all intersecting sets in $G$ and $G_v$ is a stabilizer of $v\in V$. In this paper the intersection density of transitive groups of degree twice a prime is determined, and proved to be eit…
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.
For $n > 2k \geq 4$ we consider intersecting families $\mathcal F$ consisting of $k$-subsets of $\{1, 2, \ldots, n\}$. Let $\mathcal I(\mathcal F)$ denote the family of all distinct intersections $F \cap F'$, $F \neq F'$ and $F, F'\in \mathcal F$. Let $\mathcal A$ consist of the $k$-sets $A$ satisfying $|A \cap \{1, 2, 3\}| \geq 2$. We prove that for $n \geq 50 k^2$ $|\mathcal I(\mathcal F)|$ is maximized by $\mathcal A$.
The celebrated Erdős-Ko-Rado theorem determines the maximum size of a $k$-uniform intersecting family. The Hilton-Milner theorem determines the maximum size of a $k$-uniform intersecting family that is not a subfamily of the so-called Erdős-Ko-Rado family. In turn, it is natural to ask what the maximum size of an intersecting $k$-uniform family that is neither a subfamily of the Erdős-Ko-Rado family nor of the Hilton-Milner family is. For $k\ge 4$, this was solved (implicitly) in the same paper by Hilton-Milner in 1967. We give a different and simpler proof, based on the shifting method, which…
It is well known that an intersecting family of subsets of an n-element set can contain at most 2^(n-1) sets. It is natural to wonder how `close' to intersecting a family of size greater than 2^(n-1) can be. Katona, Katona and Katona introduced the idea of a `most probably intersecting family.' Suppose that X is a family and that 0<p<1. Let X(p) be the (random) family formed by selecting each set in X independently with probability p. A family X is `most probably intersecting' if it maximises the probability that X(p) is intersecting over all families of size |X|. Katona, Katona and Katona con…
A matching in a hypergraph $H$ is a set of pairwise vertex disjoint edges in $H$ and the matching number of $H$ is the maximum cardinality of a matching in $H$. A transversal in $H$ is a subset of vertices in $H$ that has a nonempty intersection with every edge of $H$. The transversal number $τ(H)$ of $H$ is the minimum cardinality of a transversal in $H$. A hypergraph $H$ is an intersecting hypergraph if every two distinct edges of $H$ have a non-empty intersection. Equivalently, $H$ is an intersecting hypergraph if and only if it has matching number one. In this paper we study the extremal b…
Paul Erdős and László Lovász established that any \emph{maximal intersecting family of $k-$sets} has at most $k^{k}$ blocks. They introduced the problem of finding the maximum possible number of blocks in such a family. They also showed that there exists a maximal intersecting family of $k-$sets with approximately $(e-1)k!$ blocks. Later Péter Frankl, Katsuhiro Ota and Norihide Tokushige used a remarkable construction to prove the existence of a maximal intersecting family of $k-$sets with at least $(\frac{k}{2})^{k-1}$ blocks. In this article we introduce the notion of a \emph{closed intersec…
Two elements $g$ and $h$ of a permutation group $G$ acting on a set $V$ are said to be intersecting if $g(v) = h(v)$ for some $v \in V$. More generally, a subset ${\cal F}$ of $G$ is an intersecting set if every pair of elements of ${\cal F}$ is intersecting. The intersection density $ρ(G)$ of a transitive permutation group $G$ is the maximum value of the quotient $|{\cal F}|/|G_v|$ where $G_v$ is a stabilizer of $v\in V$ and ${\cal F}$ runs over all intersecting sets in $G$. Intersection densities of transitive groups of degree $pq$, where $p>q$ are odd primes, is considered. In particular, t…
We apply the tropical intersection theory developed by L. Allermann and J. Rau to compute intersection products of tropical Psi-classes on the moduli space of rational tropical curves. We show that in the case of zero-dimensional (stable) intersections, the resulting numbers agree with the intersection numbers of Psi-classes on the moduli space of n-marked rational curves computed in algebraic geometry.
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…
Let $n$, $r$, $k_1,\ldots,k_r$ and $t$ be positive integers with $r\geq 2$, and $\mathcal{F}_i\ (1\leq i\leq r)$ a family of $k_i$-subsets of an $n$-set $V$. The families $\mathcal{F}_1,\ \mathcal{F}_2,\ldots,\mathcal{F}_r$ are said to be $r$-cross $t$-intersecting if $|F_1\cap F_2\cap\cdots\cap F_r|\geq t$ for all $F_i\in\mathcal{F}_i\ (1\leq i\leq r),$ and said to be non-trivial if $|\cap_{1\leq i\leq r}\cap_{F\in\mathcal{F}_i}F|<t$. If the $r$-cross $t$-intersecting families $\mathcal{F}_1,\ldots,\mathcal{F}_r$ satisfy $\mathcal{F}_1=\cdots=\mathcal{F}_r=\mathcal{F}$, then $\mathcal{F}$ is …
Let $\mathcal{F}$ be a family of subsets of $[n]=\{1,\ldots,n\}$ and let $L$ be a set of nonnegative integers. The family $\mathcal{F}$ is \emph{$L$-intersecting} if $|F\cap F'|\in L$ for every two distinct members $F,F'\in\mathcal{F}$; and $\mathcal{F}$ is $k$-uniform if all its members have the same size $k$. A large variety of problems and results in extremal set theory concern on $k$-uniform $L$-intersecting families. Many attentions are paid to finding the maximum size of a family among all $k$-uniform $L$-intersecting families with prescribed $n,k$ and $L$. In this paper, from another po…
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.
Let $r(k)$ denote the maximum number of edges in a $k$-uniform intersecting family with covering number $k$. Erdős and Lovász proved that $ \lfloor k! (e-1) \rfloor \leq r(k) \leq k^k.$ Frankl, Ota, and Tokushige improved the lower bound to $r(k) \geq \left( k/2 \right)^{k-1}$, and Tuza improved the upper bound to $r(k) \leq (1-e^{-1}+o(1))k^k$. We establish that $ r(k) \leq (1 + o(1)) k^{k-1}$.
A family of sets is said to be intersecting if every pair of sets in the family have non-empty intersection. In this paper, we initiate the study of intersecting non-uniform families of sets of one of two sizes containing given subfamilies. For a set $X$ and integer $r$, let $\binom{X}{r}$ denote the family $\{A \subseteq X: |X| = r\}$. Let $a$, $b$, and $n$ be positive integers such that $a < b$. We determine the maximum size of an intersecting family in $\binom{[n]}{a} \cup \binom{[2n]}{b}$ whenever $n > b$. For $n$ sufficiently large, we also determine the maximum size of an intersecting fa…
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 $(2k+1)/3$.
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…
In this paper we consider some results on intersection between rays and a given family of convex, compact sets. These results are similar to the center point theorem, and Tverberg's theorem on partitions of a point set.
We present a semidefinite programming approach to bound the measures of cross-independent pairs in a bipartite graph. This can be viewed as a far-reaching extension of Hoffman's ratio bound on the independence number of a graph. As an application, we solve a problem on the maximum measures of cross-intersecting families of subsets with two different product measures, which is a generalized measure version of the Erdős-Ko-Rado theorem for cross-intersecting families with different uniformities.
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.
For a permutation group $G$ acting on a set $V$, a subset $\mathcal{F}$ of $G$ is said to be an intersecting set if for every pair of elements $g,h\in \mathcal{F}$ there exists $v \in V$ such that $g(v) = h(v)$. The intersection density $ρ(G)$ of a transitive permutation group $G$ is the maximum value of the quotient $|\mathcal{F}|/|G_v|$ where $G_v$ is a stabilizer of a point $v\in V$ and $\mathcal{F}$ runs over all intersecting sets in $G$. If $G_v$ is a largest intersecting set in $G$ then $G$ is said to have the Erdős-Ko-Rado (EKR)-property. This paper is devoted to the study of transitive…
Two hexagons in the space are said to intersect heavily if their intersection consists of at least one common vertex as well as an interior point. We show that the number of hexagons on n points in 3-space without heavy intersections is o(n^2), under the assumption that the hexagons are "fat".
The celebrated Erdős-Ko-Rado theorem \cite{EKR1961} states that the maximum intersecting $k$-uniform family on $[n]$ is a full star if $n\ge 2k+1$. Furthermore, Hilton-Milner \cite{HM1967} showed that if an intersecting $k$-uniform family on $[n]$ is not a subfamily of a full star, then its maximum size achieves only on a family isomorphic to $HM(n,k):= \Bigl\{G\in {[n] \choose k}: 1\in G, G\cap [2,k+1] \neq \emptyset \Bigr\} \cup \Bigl\{ [2,k+1] \Bigr\} $ if $n>2k$ and $k\ge 4$, and there is one more possibility in the case of $k=3$. Han and Kohayakawa \cite{HK2017} determined the maximum int…
A family of perfect matchings of $K_{2n}$ is $intersecting$ if any two of its members have an edge in common. It is known that if $\mathcal{F}$ is family of intersecting perfect matchings of $K_{2n}$, then $|\mathcal{F}| \leq (2n-3)!!$ and if equality holds, then $\mathcal{F} = \mathcal{F}_{ij}$ where $ \mathcal{F}_{ij}$ is the family of all perfect matchings of $K_{2n}$ that contain some fixed edge $ij$. In this note, we show that the extremal families are stable, namely, that for any $ε\in (0,1/\sqrt{e})$ and $n > n(ε)$, any intersecting family of perfect matchings of size greater than $(1 -…
Determining the maximum size of a $t$-intersecting code in $[m]^n$ was a longstanding open problem of Frankl and Füredi, solved independently by Ahlswede and Khachatrian and by Frankl and Tokushige. We extend their result to the setting of forbidden intersections, by showing that for any $m>2$ and $n$ large compared with $t$ (but not necessarily $m$) that the same bound holds for codes with the weaker property of being $(t-1)$-avoiding, i.e.\ having no two vectors that agree on exactly $t-1$ coordinates. Our proof proceeds via a junta approximation result of independent interest, which we prov…
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.
Katona's intersection theorem states that every intersecting family $\mathcal F\subseteq[n]^{(k)}$ satisfies $\vert\partial\mathcal F\vert\geq\vert\mathcal F\vert$, where $\partial\mathcal F=\{F\setminus x:x\in F\in\mathcal F\}$ is the shadow of $\mathcal F$. Frankl conjectured that for $n>2k$ and every intersecting family $\mathcal F\subseteq [n]^{(k)}$, there is some $i\in[n]$ such that $\vert \partial \mathcal F(i)\vert\geq \vert\mathcal F(i)\vert$, where $\mathcal F(i)=\{F\setminus i:i\in F\in\mathcal F\}$ is the link of $\mathcal F$ at $i$. Here, we prove this conjecture in a very strong …
A family $\mathcal{A}$ of sets is said to be \emph{$t$-intersecting} if any two sets in $\mathcal{A}$ have at least $t$ common elements. A central problem in extremal set theory is to determine the size or structure of a largest $t$-intersecting sub-family of a given family $\mathcal{F}$. We give a survey of known results, conjectures and open problems for various important families $\mathcal{F}$, namely, power sets, levels of power sets, hereditary families, families of signed sets, families of labeled sets, and families of permutations. We also provide some extensions and consequences of kno…
Given a family of sets on the plane, we say that the family is intersecting if for any two sets from the family their interiors intersect. In this paper, we study intersecting families of triangles with vertices in a given set of points. In particular, we show that if a set $P$ of $n$ points is in convex position, then the largest intersecting family of triangles with vertices in $P$ contains at most $(\frac{1}{4}+o(1))\binom{n}{3}$ triangles.
Let A_1,...,A_k be a collection of families of subsets of an n-element set. We say that this collection is cross-intersecting if for any i,j in [k] with i not equal to j, A in A_i and B in A_j implies that the intersection of A and B is nonempty. We consider a theorem of Hilton which gives a best possible upper bound on the sum of the cardinalities of uniform cross-intersecting subfamilies. We formulate a graph-theoretic analogue of Hilton's cross-intersection theorem, similar to the one developed by Holroyd, Spencer and Talbot for the Erdos-Ko-Rado theorem. In particular we build on a result …
A family of perfect matchings of $K_{2n}$ is $t$-$intersecting$ if any two members share $t$ or more edges. We prove for any $t \in \mathbb{N}$ that every $t$-intersecting family of perfect matchings has size no greater than $(2(n-t) - 1)!!$ for sufficiently large $n$, and that equality holds if and only if the family is composed of all perfect matchings that contain a fixed set of $t$ disjoint edges. This is an asymptotic version of a conjecture of Godsil and Meagher that can be seen as the non-bipartite analogue of the Deza-Frankl conjecture proven by Ellis, Friedgut, and Pilpel.
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 …
A family $\F$ of sets is said to be intersecting if any two sets in $\F$ have nonempty intersection. The celebrated Erd{\H o}s-Ko-Rado theorem determines the size and structure of the largest intersecting family of $k$-sets on an $n$-set $X$. An $(s,t)$-union intersecting family is a family of $k$-sets on an $n$-set $X$ such that for any $A_1,\ldots,A_{s+t}$ in this family, $\left(\cup_{i=1}^sA_i\right)\cap\left(\cup_{i=1}^t A_{i+s}\right)\neq \varnothing.$ Let $\ell(\F)$ be the minimum number of sets in $\F$ such that by removing them the resulting subfamily is intersecting. In this paper, fo…
A family of graphs F is said to be triangle-intersecting if for any two graphs G,H in F, the intersection of G and H contains a triangle. A conjecture of Simonovits and Sos from 1976 states that the largest triangle-intersecting families of graphs on a fixed set of n vertices are those obtained by fixing a specific triangle and taking all graphs containing it, resulting in a family of size (1/8) 2^{n choose 2}. We prove this conjecture and some generalizations (for example, we prove that the same is true of odd-cycle-intersecting families, and we obtain best possible bounds on the size of the …
A family of subsets $\mathcal{F}\subseteq {[n]\choose k}$ is called intersecting if any two of its members share a common element. Consider an intersecting family, a direct problem is to determine its maximal size and the inverse problem is to characterize its extremal structure and its corresponding stability. The famous Erdős-Ko-Rado theorem answered both direct and inverse problems and led the era of studying intersection problems for finite sets. In this paper, we consider the following quantitative intersection problem which can be viewed an inverse problem for Erdős-Ko-Rado type theorems…
Two families $\mathcal{A}$ and $\mathcal{B}$ of sets are said to be cross-intersecting if each member of $\mathcal{A}$ intersects each member of $\mathcal{B}$. For any two integers $n$ and $k$ with $0 \leq k \leq n$, let ${[n] \choose \leq k}$ denote the family of all subsets of $\{1, \dots, n\}$ of size at most $k$. We show that if $\mathcal{A} \subseteq {[m] \choose \leq r}$, $\mathcal{B} \subseteq {[n] \choose \leq s}$, and $\mathcal{A}$ and $\mathcal{B}$ are cross-intersecting, then \[|\mathcal{A}||\mathcal{B}| \leq \sum_{i=0}^r {m-1 \choose i-1} \sum_{j=0}^s {n-1 \choose j-1},\] and equal…
We study the problem of determining the size of the largest intersecting $P$-free family for a given partially ordered set (poset) $P$. In particular, we find the exact size of the largest intersecting $B$-free family where $B$ is the butterfly poset and classify the cases of equality. The proof uses a new generalization of the partition method of Griggs, Li and Lu. We also prove generalizations of two well-known inequalities of Bollobás and Greene, Katona and Kleitman in this case. Furthermore, we obtain a general bound on the size of the largest intersecting $P$-free family, which is sharp f…
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.
A family $\mathcal{A}$ of sets is {\it $t$-intersecting} if the cardinality of the intersection of every pair of sets in $\mathcal{A}$ is at least $t$, and is an {\it $r$-family} if every set in $\mathcal{A}$ has cardinality $r$. A well-known theorem of Erdős, Ko, and Rado bounds the cardinality of a $t$-intersecting $r$-family of subsets of an $n$-element set, or equivalently of $(r-1)$-dimensional faces of a simplex with $n$ vertices. As a generalization of the Erdős-Ko-Rado theorem, Borg presented a conjecture concerning the size of a $t$-intersecting $r$-family of faces of an arbitrary sim…
Three intersection theorems are proved. First, we determine the size of the largest set system, where the system of the pairwise unions is l-intersecting. Then we investigate set systems where the union of any s sets intersect the union of any t sets. The maximal size of such a set system is determined exactly if s+t<5, and asymptotically if s+t>4. Finally, we exactly determine the maximal size of a k-uniform set system that has the above described (s,t)-union-intersecting property, for large enough n.
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…
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…
Given a finite transitive group $G\leq \operatorname{Sym}(Ω)$, a subset $\mathcal{F}$ of $G$ is \emph{intersecting} if any two elements of $\mathcal{F}$ agree on some element of $Ω$. The \emph{intersection density} of $G$, denoted by $ρ(G)$, is the maximum of the rational number $|\mathcal{F}|\left(\frac{|G|}{|Ω|}\right)^{-1}$ when $\mathcal{F}$ runs through all intersecting sets in $G$. In this paper, we prove that if $G$ is the group $\operatorname{Sym}(n)$ or $\operatorname{Alt}(n)$ acting on the $k$-subsets of $\{1,2,3\ldots,n\}$, for $k\in \{3,4,5\}$, then $ρ(G)=1$. Our proof relies on th…
Paul Erdős and László Lovász proved in a landmark article that, for any positive integer $k$, up to isomorphism there are only finitely many maximal intersecting families of $k-$sets (maximal $k-$cliques). So they posed the problem of determining or estimating the largest number $N(k)$ of the points in such a family. They also proved by means of an example that $N(k)\geq2k-2+\frac{1}{2}\binom{2k-2}{k-1}$. Much later, Zsolt Tuza proved that the bound is best possible up to a multiplicative constant by showing that asymptotically $N(k)$ is at most $4$ times this lower bound. In this paper we red…
