English

Intersecting families with full difference sets

Combinatorics 2024-12-02 v3

Abstract

For a family F\mathcal{F} of subsets of a finite set, define D(F)={FF:F,FF}\mathcal{D}(\mathcal{F})=\{F\setminus F': F, F'\in\mathcal{F}\}. A family F\mathcal{F} is called intersecting if FFF\cap F'\not=\emptyset for all F,FFF, F'\in\mathcal{F}. Frankl \cite{Frankl} showed that for a kk-uniform intersecting family F([n]k)\mathcal{F}\subset{[n]\choose k} with nk(k+3)n\ge k(k+3), D(F)|\mathcal{D}(\mathcal{F})| reaches the maximum if and only if F\mathcal{F} is a kk-uniform full star. Later, Frankl-Kiselev-Kupavskii \cite{FKK} improved the bound nk(k+3)n\ge k(k+3) in the above result of Frankl \cite{Frankl} to n50klnkn\ge 50klnk for k50k\ge 50. For 2k<n<4k2k<n<4k, Frankl-Kiselev-Kupavskii \cite{FKK} showed that there exists a kk-uniform family F([n]k)\mathcal{F}\subset{[n]\choose k} such that D(F)|\mathcal{D}(\mathcal{F})| is larger than D(S)|\mathcal{D}(\mathcal{S})|, where S\mathcal{S} is a full star. This result left the case n=2kn=2k open and we show that D(F)\mathcal{D}(\mathcal{F}) can be `full' for some F([n]k)\mathcal{F}\subset{[n]\choose k}. It is clear that for an intersecting family F([n]k)\mathcal{F}\subset{[n]\choose k}, D(F)j=0k1([n]j)\mathcal{D}(\mathcal{F})\subseteq \cup_{j=0}^{k-1}{[n]\choose j}. We say that a kk-uniform intersecting family F([n]k)\mathcal{F}\subset{[n]\choose k} has full differences if D(F)=j=0k1([n]j)\mathcal{D}(\mathcal{F})=\cup_{j=0}^{k-1}{[n]\choose j}. For odd kk, Frankl \cite{Frankl} gave a kk-uniform intersecting family F([2k]k)\mathcal{F}\subset{[2k]\choose k} having full differences of size k1k-1, and he asked for even k4k\ge 4 whether there exists a kk-uniform intersecting family F([2k]k)\mathcal{F}\subset{[2k]\choose k} having full differences of size k1k-1. We answer this question in a stronger form and show that for even k4k\ge 4, there exists a kk-uniform intersecting family F([2k]k)\mathcal{F}\subset{[2k]\choose k} having full differences.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2410.23723,
  title  = {Intersecting families with full difference sets},
  author = {Yan zilong and Peng Yuejian},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2410.23723},
  year   = {2024}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T19:42:34.956Z