English

Extremal Families for the Erdős--Kleitman Problem: The Missing Constructions

Combinatorics 2026-07-28 v1

Abstract

For integers ns2n\ge s\ge2, let e(n,s)e(n,s) be the maximum size of a family F2[n]\mathcal F\subseteq2^{[n]} with no ss pairwise disjoint members. The problem of determining e(n,s)e(n,s), now called the Erd\H{o}s--Kleitman problem, is closely related to the well-known Erd\H{o}s matching problem. Frankl and Kupavskii posed a meta-conjecture predicting that the maximum is always attained by a weighted family. Fix m3m\ge3, write n=ms+cn=ms+c with 0c<s0\le c<s, and set =sc\ell=s-c. For 0km0\le k\le m, let ak=mskc1a_k=ms-kc-1. For A([n]ak)A\in\binom{[n]}{a_k}, define Hk(m,s,;A):={F[n]:kF+FAm(k+1)}. \mathcal H^k(m,s,\ell;A):= \{F\subseteq[n]: k|F|+|F\cap A|\ge m(k+1)\}. This defines a unified class of weighted families with matching number less than ss. Among these families, H0\mathcal H^0, H1\mathcal H^1, and Hm\mathcal H^m were previously known to be extremal in different ranges of cc. We show that for 1km11\le k\le m-1, all families Hk\mathcal H^k are uniquely extremal in some ranges of cc. More precisely, we prove that for every m3m\ge3 and every 1km11\le k\le m-1, there exist constants α=α(m,k)>0\alpha=\alpha(m,k)>0, β=β(m,k)>0\beta=\beta(m,k)>0 and an integer s0=s0(m,k)s_0=s_0(m,k) such that, for all integers ss0s\ge s_0 and all integers cc with 0c<s0\le c<s, the only extremal families for e(n,s)e(n,s) are the families Hk(m,s,;A)\mathcal H^k(m,s,\ell;A) with A([n]ak)A\in\binom{[n]}{a_k} whenever βs(k1)/kcαsk/(k+1)\beta s^{(k-1)/k}\le c\le \alpha s^{k/(k+1)}. In particular, this result determines an infinite number of new extremal families for the Erd\H{o}s--Kleitman problem and verifies the Frankl--Kupavskii meta-conjecture in these ranges. This also provides a quantitative extension of the result of Kupavskii and Sokolov on the extremality of H1\mathcal H^1.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.25611,
  title  = {Extremal Families for the Erdős--Kleitman Problem: The Missing Constructions},
  author = {Cheng Chi and Yan Wang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.25611},
  year   = {2026}
}