English

On supersaturation in the Erd\H{o}s--S\'os problem

Combinatorics 2026-02-12 v1

Abstract

The following classical question in extremal set theory is due to Erd\H os and S\'os: what is the size of the largest family F([n]k)\mathcal F\subset {[n]\choose k} with no two sets F1,F2FF_1,F_2\in \mathcal F such that F1F2=t|F_1\cap F_2| = t? In this paper, we address a supersaturation question for this extremal function. For a family F([n]k)\mathcal F\subset {[n]\choose k} of a fixed size \ell, what is the smallest number of pairs F1,F2FF_1,F_2\in \mathcal F with F1F2=t|F_1\cap F_2|=t it may induce? For fixed kk and nn\to \infty, we find the exact threshold when the minimum number of pairs matches the expected number of pairs in a random \ell-element family up to a constant factor. We also find an exact answer for \ell slightly above the extremal function.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.10292,
  title  = {On supersaturation in the Erd\H{o}s--S\'os problem},
  author = {Andrey Kupavskii and Yakov Shubin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.10292},
  year   = {2026}
}