English

A note on extremal intersecting linear Ryser systems

Combinatorics 2021-08-04 v1

Abstract

A famous conjecture of Ryser states that any rr-partite set system has transversal number at most r1r-1 times their matching number. This conjecture is only known to be true for r3r\leq3 in general, for r5r\leq5 if the set system is intersecting, and for r9r\leq9 if the intersecting set system is linear. In this note, we deal with Ryser's Conjecture for intersecting rr-partite linear systems; that is, if τ\tau is the transversal number for an intersecting rr-partite linear system, then Ryser's Conjecture states that τr1\tau\leq r-1. If this conjecture is true, this is known to be sharp for rr for which there exists a projective plane of order r1r-1. There has also been considerable effort to find intersecting rr-partite set systems whose transversal number is r1r-1. In this note, the following is proved: if r4r\geq4 is an even integer, then fl(r)3(r2)+1f_l(r)\geq3(r-2)+1, where fl(r)f_l(r) is the minimum number of lines of an intersecting rr-partite linear system whose transversal number is r1r-1. This lower bound gives an exact value for fl(r)f_l(r), for some small values of rr. Also, we prove that any rr-partite linear system satisfies τr1\tau\leq r-1 if ν2r\nu_2\leq r for all r3r\geq3 odd integer and ν2r1\nu_2\leq r-1 for all r4r\geq4 even integer, where ν2\nu_2 is the maximum cardinality of a subset of lines RLR\subseteq\mathcal{L} such that every triplet of different elements of RR does not have a common point.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2108.01108,
  title  = {A note on extremal intersecting linear Ryser systems},
  author = {Adrián Vázquez Ávila},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2108.01108},
  year   = {2021}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-24T04:46:05.477Z