Related papers: Traces Without Maximal Chains

We say a family of sets is intersecting if any two of its sets intersect, and we say it is trivially intersecting if there is an element which appears in every set of the family. In this paper we study the maximum size of a non-trivially…

A central theorem in combinatorics is Sperner's Theorem, which determines the maximum size of a family $\mathcal{F}\subseteq \mathcal{P}(n)$ that does not contain a $2$-chain $F_1\subsetneq F_2$. Erd\H{o}s later extended this result and…

Two families $\mathcal{A}$ and $\mathcal{B}$ of sets are said to be cross-intersecting if each member of $\mathcal{A}$ intersects each member of $\mathcal{B}$. For any two integers $n$ and $k$ with $0 \leq k \leq n$, let ${[n] \choose \leq…

For positive integers $w$ and $k$, two vectors $A$ and $B$ from $\mathbb{Z}^w$ are called $k$-crossing if there are two coordinates $i$ and $j$ such that $A[i]-B[i]\geq k$ and $B[j]-A[j]\geq k$. What is the maximum size of a family of…

Let F be a family of subsets of an n-element set not containing four distinct members such that A union B is contained in C intersect D. It is proved that the maximum size of F under this condition is equal to the sum of the two largest…

The purpose of this short problem paper is to raise an extremal question on set systems which seems to be natural and appealing. Our question is: which set systems of a given size maximise the number of $(n+1)$-element chains in the power…

A well-known theorem of Sperner describes the largest collections of subsets of an $n$-element set none of which contains another set from the collection. Generalising this result, Erd\H{o}s characterised the largest families of subsets of…

The problem of bounding the size of a set system under various intersection restrictions has a central place in extremal combinatorics. We investigate the maximum number of disjoint pairs a set system can have in this setting. In…

Let $\mathcal{A}$ be a union-closed family of sets with base set $b(\mathcal{A})=\bigcup_{A \in \mathcal{A}}A$ denoted by $[n]=\{1, \cdots, n\}$, and for any real $x>0$, let $\mathcal{A}_{<x} = \{A \in \mathcal{A} \ | \ |A| < x\}$. Also,…

The Erd\H os Matching Conjecture states that the maximum size $f(n,k,s)$ of a family $\mathcal{F}\subseteq \binom{[n]}{k}$ that does not contain $s$ pairwise disjoint sets is $\max\{|\mathcal{A}_{k,s}|,|\mathcal{B}_{n,k,s}|\}$, where…

A 3-simplex is a collection of four sets A_1,...,A_4 with empty intersection such that any three of them have nonempty intersection. We show that the maximum size of a set system on n elements without a 3-simplex is $2^{n-1} +…

A family $\mathcal{F}$ of subsets of $[n]=\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$ shatters a set $A \subseteq [n]$ if for every $A' \subseteq A$ there is an $F \in \mathcal{F}$ such that $F \cap A=A'$. We develop a framework to analyze $f(n,k,d)$, the maximum…

For a given positive integer $k$ we say that a family of subsets of $[n]$ is $k$-antichain saturated if it does not contain $k$ pairwise incomparable sets, but whenever we add to it a new set, we do find $k$ such sets. The size of the…

For a family of graphs $\mathcal{F}$, the Tur\'{a}n number $ex(n,\mathcal{F})$ is the maximum number of edges in an $n$-vertex graph containing no member of $\mathcal{F}$ as a subgraph. The maximum number of edges in an $n$-vertex connected…

Extending a classical theorem of Sperner, we characterize the integers $m$ such that there exists a maximal antichain of size $m$ in the Boolean lattice $B_n$, that is, the power set of $[n]:=\{1,2,\dots,n\}$, ordered by inclusion. As an…

The Frankl conjecture, also known as the union-closed sets conjecture, states that in any finite non-empty union-closed family, there exists an element in at least half of the sets. From an optimization point of view, one could instead…

The collection of branches (maximal linearly ordered sets of nodes) of the tree ${}^{<\omega}\omega$ (ordered by inclusion) forms an almost disjoint family (of sets of nodes). This family is not maximal -- for example, any level of the tree…

A family $\mathcal{F} \subset \mathcal{P}(n)$ is $r$-wise $k$-intersecting if $|A_1 \cap \dots \cap A_r| \geq k$ for any $A_1, \dots, A_r \in \mathcal{F}$. It is easily seen that if $\mathcal{F}$ is $r$-wise $k$-intersecting for $r \geq 2$,…

We find the maximum number of maximal independent sets in two families of graphs: all graphs with $n$ vertices and at most $r$ cycles, and all such graphs that are also connected. In addition, we characterize the extremal graphs.

Let $\mathcal{F}$ be a family of subsets of $[n]=\{1,\ldots,n\}$ and let $L$ be a set of nonnegative integers. The family $\mathcal{F}$ is \emph{$L$-intersecting} if $|F\cap F'|\in L$ for every two distinct members $F,F'\in\mathcal{F}$; and…