English

A random version of Sperner's theorem

Combinatorics 2014-10-06 v2

Abstract

Let P(n)\mathcal{P}(n) denote the power set of [n][n], ordered by inclusion, and let P(n,p)\mathcal{P}(n,p) be obtained from P(n)\mathcal{P}(n) by selecting elements from P(n)\mathcal{P}(n) independently at random with probability pp. A classical result of Sperner asserts that every antichain in P(n)\mathcal{P}(n) has size at most that of the middle layer, (nn/2)\binom{n}{\lfloor n/2 \rfloor}. In this note we prove an analogous result for P(n,p)\mathcal{P} (n,p): If pnpn \rightarrow \infty then, with high probability, the size of the largest antichain in P(n,p)\mathcal{P}(n,p) is at most (1+o(1))p(nn/2)(1+o(1)) p \binom{n}{\lfloor n/2 \rfloor}. This solves a conjecture of Osthus who proved the result in the case when pn/lognpn/\log n \rightarrow \infty. Our condition on pp is best-possible. In fact, we prove a more general result giving an upper bound on the size of the largest antichain for a wider range of values of pp.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1404.5079,
  title  = {A random version of Sperner's theorem},
  author = {József Balogh and Richard Mycroft and Andrew Treglown},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1404.5079},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

7 pages. Updated to include minor revisions and publication data

R2 v1 2026-06-22T03:54:31.627Z