English

On some extremal and probabilistic questions for tree posets

Combinatorics 2023-12-22 v2

Abstract

Given two posets P,QP,Q we say that QQ is PP-free if QQ does not contain a copy of PP. The size of the largest PP-free family in 2[n]2^{[n]}, denoted by La(n,P)La(n,P), has been extensively studied since the 1980s. We consider several related problems. Indeed, for posets PP whose Hasse diagrams are trees and have radius at most 22, we prove that there are 2(1+o(1))La(n,P)2^{(1+o(1))La(n,P)} PP-free families in 2[n]2^{[n]}, thereby confirming a conjecture of Gerbner, Nagy, Patk\'os and Vizer [Electronic Journal of Combinatorics, 2021] in these cases. For such PP we also resolve the random version of the PP-free problem, thus generalising the random version of Sperner's theorem due to Balogh, Mycroft and Treglown [Journal of Combinatorial Theory Series A, 2014], and Collares Neto and Morris [Random Structures and Algorithms, 2016]. Additionally, we make a general conjecture that, roughly speaking, asserts that subfamilies of 2[n]2^{[n]} of size sufficiently above La(n,P)La(n,P) robustly contain PP, for any poset PP whose Hasse diagram is a tree.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2308.14863,
  title  = {On some extremal and probabilistic questions for tree posets},
  author = {Balázs Patkós and Andrew Treglown},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2308.14863},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

Author accepted manuscript, to appear in the Electronic Journal of Combinatorics

R2 v1 2026-06-28T12:06:40.179Z