English

Intersecting generalised permutations

Combinatorics 2014-03-11 v1

Abstract

For any positive integers k,r,nk,r,n with rmin{k,n}r \leq \min\{k,n\}, let Pk,r,n\mathcal{P}_{k,r,n} be the family of all sets {(x1,y1),,(xr,yr)}\{(x_1,y_1), \dots, (x_r,y_r)\} such that x1,,xrx_1, \dots, x_r are distinct elements of [k]={1,,k}[k] = \{1, \dots, k\} and y1,,yry_1, \dots, y_r are distinct elements of [n][n]. The families Pn,n,n\mathcal{P}_{n,n,n} and Pn,r,n\mathcal{P}_{n,r,n} describe permutations of [n][n] and rr-partial permutations of [n][n], respectively. If knk \leq n, then Pk,k,n\mathcal{P}_{k,k,n} describes permutations of kk-element subsets of [n][n]. A family A\mathcal{A} of sets is said to be intersecting if every two members of A\mathcal{A} intersect. In this note we use Katona's elegant cycle method to show that a number of important Erd\H{o}s-Ko-Rado-type results by various authors generalise as follows: the size of any intersecting subfamily A\mathcal{A} of Pk,r,n\mathcal{P}_{k,r,n} is at most (k1r1)(n1)!(nr)!{k-1 \choose r-1}\frac{(n-1)!}{(n-r)!}, and the bound is attained if and only if A={APk,r,n ⁣:(a,b)A}\mathcal{A} = \{A \in \mathcal{P}_{k,r,n} \colon (a,b) \in A\} for some a[k]a \in [k] and b[n]b \in [n].

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1403.2344,
  title  = {Intersecting generalised permutations},
  author = {Peter Borg and Karen Meagher},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1403.2344},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

8 pages, submitted

R2 v1 2026-06-22T03:23:45.442Z