English

Almost intersecting families

Combinatorics 2021-03-22 v3 Discrete Mathematics

Abstract

Let n>k>1n > k > 1 be integers, [n]={1,,n}[n] = \{1, \ldots, n\}. Let F\mathcal F be a family of kk-subsets of~[n][n]. The family F\mathcal F is called intersecting if FFF \cap F' \neq \emptyset for all F,FFF, F' \in \mathcal F. It is called almost intersecting if it is not intersecting but to every FFF \in \mathcal F there is at most one FFF'\in \mathcal F satisfying FF=F \cap F' = \emptyset. Gerbner et al. proved that if n2k+2n \geq 2k + 2 then F(n1k1)|\mathcal F| \leq {n - 1\choose k - 1} holds for almost intersecting families. The main result implies the considerably stronger and best possible bound F(n1k1)(nk1k1)+2|\mathcal F| \leq {n - 1\choose k - 1} - {n - k - 1\choose k - 1} + 2 for n>(2+o(1))kn > (2 + o(1))k.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2004.08714,
  title  = {Almost intersecting families},
  author = {Peter Frankl and Andrey Kupavskii},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.08714},
  year   = {2021}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T14:56:30.375Z