English

On $r$-cross $t$-intersecting families of partitions

Combinatorics 2026-02-24 v1

Abstract

In this paper, we address several intersection problems for rr-cross tt-intersecting families of partitions. A kk-partition of an nn-set XX is a set of kk pairwise disjoint non-empty subsets whose union is XX. For 1ir1\leq i\leq r, let Fi\mathcal{F}_i be a family of kik_i-partitions of XX. We say that F1,F2,,Fr\mathcal{F}_1,\mathcal{F}_2,\ldots,\mathcal{F}_r are rr-cross tt-intersecting if i=1rFit|\cap_{i=1}^{r}F_i|\geq t for all FiFiF_i\in\mathcal{F}_i. The families are called non-trivial if i=1r(FFiF)<t|\cap_{i=1}^r(\cap_{F\in\mathcal{F}_i}F)|<t. Proving an Erd\H{o}s-Ko-Rado type theorem, we determine the families maximizing i=1rFi\prod_{i=1}^r|\mathcal{F}_i|. We further determine non-trivial rr-cross tt-intersecting families with maximum product of sizes; this result also serves as a Hilton-Milner type theorem. In particular, for r=2r=2 there are two potential structures for optimal families, and for r3r\geq3 exactly one remains.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.19464,
  title  = {On $r$-cross $t$-intersecting families of partitions},
  author = {Jie Wen and Benjian Lv},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.19464},
  year   = {2026}
}