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Maxmum Size of a Uniform Family with Bounded VC-dimension

Combinatorics 2025-08-21 v1

Abstract

In 1984, Frankl and Pach proved that, for positive integers nn and dd, the maximum size of a (d+1)(d+1)-uniform set family F\mathcal{F} on an nn-element set with VC-dimension at most dd is at most (nd){n\choose d}; and they suspected that (nd){n\choose d} could be replaced by (n1d){n-1\choose d}, which would generalize the famous Erd\H{o}s-Ko-Rado theorem and was mentioned by Erd\H{o}s as Frankl--Pach conjecture. However, Ahlswede and Khachatrian in 1997 constructed (d+1)(d+1)-uniform families on an nn-element set with VC-dimension at most dd and size exactly (n1d)+(n4d2)\binom{n-1}{d}+\binom{n-4}{d-2}, and Mubayi and Zhao in 2007 constructed more such families. It has since been an open question to narrow the gap between the lower bound (n1d)+(n4d2)\binom{n-1}{d}+\binom{n-4}{d-2} and the upper bound (nd){n\choose d}. In a recent breakthrough, Chao, Xu, Yip, and Zhang reduced the upper bound (nd)\binom{n }{d} to (n1d)+O(nd114d2) \binom{n-1}{d}+O( n^{d-1-\frac{1}{4d-2}}). In this paper, we further reduce the upper bound to (n1d)+O(nd2)\binom{n-1}{d} + O(n^{d-2}), asymptotically matching the lower bound (n1d)+(n4d2)\binom{n-1}{d}+\binom{n-4}{d-2}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2508.14334,
  title  = {Maxmum Size of a Uniform Family with Bounded VC-dimension},
  author = {Tianchi Yang and Xingxing Yu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.14334},
  year   = {2025}
}

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16 pages