English

An upper bound for union-closed family size

Combinatorics 2025-11-14 v1

Abstract

Let A\mathcal{A} be a union-closed family of sets with universe AAA=[n]={1,,n}\bigcup_{A \in \mathcal{A}}A = [n] = \{1,\cdots,n\} and length \ell. We prove that Ai=0(ni)|\mathcal{A}| \leq \sum_{i=0}^{\ell} \binom{n}{i}, with equality if and only if A=i=0([n]ni)\mathcal{A} = \bigcup_{i=0}^{\ell}\binom{[n]}{n-i}. Additionally, by showing that Ap11+2n(12)p|\mathcal{A}| \leq \frac{\ell^p-1}{\ell-1}+2^n(1-2^{-\ell})^p for any nonnegative integer pp, we establish for all integers 1kn1 \leq k \leq n that i=0k(ni)kp^1k1+2n(12k)p^\sum_{i=0}^k \binom{n}{i} \leq \frac{k^{\hat{p}}-1}{k-1}+2^n(1-2^{-k})^{\hat{p}}, where p^=(nk)/log2(k12k)+1\hat{p}=\lfloor (n-k)/\log_2(\frac{k}{1-2^{-k}})\rfloor + 1.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2511.10608,
  title  = {An upper bound for union-closed family size},
  author = {Christopher Bouchard},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.10608},
  year   = {2025}
}