English

An Erd{\H o}s-Ko-Rado theorem for permutations with fixed number of cycles

Combinatorics 2014-02-05 v1

Abstract

Let SnS_{n} denote the set of permutations of [n]={1,2,,n}[n]=\{1,2,\dots, n\}. For a positive integer kk, define Sn,kS_{n,k} to be the set of all permutations of [n][n] with exactly kk disjoint cycles, i.e., Sn,k={πSn:π=c1c2ck}, S_{n,k} = \{\pi \in S_{n}: \pi = c_{1}c_{2} \cdots c_{k}\}, where c1,c2,,ckc_1,c_2,\dots ,c_k are disjoint cycles. The size of Sn,kS_{n,k} is given by [nk]=(1)nks(n,k)\left [ \begin{matrix}n\\ k \end{matrix}\right]=(-1)^{n-k}s(n,k), where s(n,k)s(n,k) is the Stirling number of the first kind. A family ASn,k\mathcal{A} \subseteq S_{n,k} is said to be tt-{\em intersecting} if any two elements of A\mathcal{A} have at least tt common cycles. In this paper, we show that, given any positive integers k,tk,t with kt+1k\geq t+1, there exists an integer n0=n0(k,t)n_0=n_0(k,t), such that for all nn0n\geq n_0, if ASn,k\mathcal{A} \subseteq S_{n,k} is tt-intersecting, then A[ntkt], |\mathcal{A}| \le \left [ \begin{matrix}n-t\\ k-t \end{matrix}\right], with equality if and only if A\mathcal{A} is the stabiliser of tt fixed points.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1402.0668,
  title  = {An Erd{\H o}s-Ko-Rado theorem for permutations with fixed number of cycles},
  author = {Cheng Yeaw Ku and Kok Bin Wong},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1402.0668},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

8 pages