English

A note on the size of N-free families

Combinatorics 2017-04-18 v2

Abstract

The N\mathcal{N} poset consists of four distinct sets W,X,Y,ZW,X,Y,Z such that WXW\subset X, YXY\subset X, and YZY\subset Z where WW is not necessarily a subset of ZZ. A family F\mathcal{F} as a subposet of the nn-dimensional Boolean lattice, Bn\mathcal{B}_n, is N\mathcal{N}-free if it does not contain N\mathcal{N} as a subposet. Let La(n,N)\text{La}(n, \mathcal{N}) be the size of a largest N\mathcal{N}-free family in Bn\mathcal{B}_n. Katona and Tarj\'{a}n proved that La(n,N)(nk)+A(n,4,k+1)\text{La}(n,\mathcal{N})\geq {n \choose k}+A(n,4,k+1), where k=n/2k=\lfloor n/2\rfloor and A(n,4,k+1)A(n, 4, k+1) is the size of a single-error-correcting code with constant weight k+1k+1. In this note, we prove for nn even and k=n/2k=n/2, La(n,N)(nk)+A(n,4,k)\text{La}(n, \mathcal{N}) \geq {n\choose k}+A(n, 4, k), which improves the bound on La(n,N)\text{La}(n, \mathcal{N}) in the second order term for some values of nn and should be an improvement for an infinite family of values of nn, depending on the behavior of the function A(n,4,)A(n,4,\cdot).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1609.02442,
  title  = {A note on the size of N-free families},
  author = {Ryan R. Martin and Shanise Walker},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1609.02442},
  year   = {2017}
}