Related papers: Diamond-free Families

In this paper we are interested in the following problem. Let $p$ be a prime number, $S\subset \F_p$ and $\cP\subset \{P\in\F_p [X]:\deg P\le d\}$. What is the largest integer $k$ such that for all subsets $\cA, \cB$ of $\F_p$ satisfying…

In this paper we study sum-free subsets of the set $\{1,...,n\}$, that is, subsets of the first $n$ positive integers which contain no solution to the equation $x + y = z$. Cameron and Erd\H{o}s conjectured in 1990 that the number of such…

For integers $m$ and $n$, we study the problem of finding good lower bounds for the size of progression-free sets in $(\mathbb{Z}_{m}^{n},+)$. Let $r_{k}(\mathbb{Z}_{m}^{n})$ denote the maximal size of a subset of $\mathbb{Z}_{m}^{n}$…

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…

Kahn and Kim (J. Comput. Sci., 1995) have shown that for a finite poset $P$, the entropy of the incomparability graph of $P$ (normalized by multiplying by the order of $P$) and the base-$2$ logarithm of the number of linear extensions of…

A set of vertices is $k$-sparse if it induces a graph with a maximum degree of at most $k$. In this missive, we consider the order of the largest $k$-sparse set in a triangle-free graph of fixed order. We show, for example, that every…

Let $S_{n}$ denote the set of permutations of $[n]=\{1,2,\dots, n\}$. For each integer $k\geq 1$, let $S_{n,k}$ be the set of all permutations of $[n]$ with exactly $k$ disjoint cycles. A subset $H\subseteq S_{n,k}$ is to be a matching if…

Let $n\geqslant 4$ be a natural number, and let $K$ be a set $K\subseteq [n]:={1,2,...,n}$. We study the problem to find the smallest possible size of a maximal family $\mathcal{A}$ of subsets of $[n]$ such that $\mathcal{A}$ contains only…

An old problem of Moser asks: how large of a union-free subfamily does every family of m sets have? A family of sets is called union-free if there are no three distinct sets in the family such that the union of two of the sets is equal to…

Alon, Shpilka and Umans considered the following version of usual sunflower-free subset: a subset $\mbox{$\cal F$}\subseteq \{1,\ldots ,D\}^n$ for $D>2$ is sunflower-free if for every distinct triple $x,y,z\in \mbox{$\cal F$}$ there exists…

A $k$-uniform family of subsets of $[n]$ is intersecting if it does not contain a disjoint pair of sets. The study of intersecting families is central to extremal set theory, dating back to the seminal Erd\H{o}s-Ko-Rado theorem of 1961 that…

The problem of determining the maximum size $La(n,P)$ that a $P$-free subposet of the Boolean lattice $B_n$ can have, attracted the attention of many researchers, but little is known about the induced version of these problems. In this…

We count the ordered sum-free triplets of subsets in the group $\mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z}$, i.e., the triplets $(A,B,C)$ of sets $A,B,C \subset \mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z}$ for which the equation $a+b=c$ has no solution with $a\in A$, $b \in B$ and…

A sunflower is a collection of distinct sets such that the intersection of any two of them is the same as the common intersection $C$ of all of them, and $|C|$ is smaller than each of the sets. A longstanding conjecture due to Erd\H{o}s and…

We examine the following version of a classic combinatorial search problem introduced by R\'enyi: Given a finite set $X$ of $n$ elements we want to identify an unknown subset $Y \subset X$ of exactly $d$ elements by testing, by as few as…

P. Hrube\v s, S. Natarajan Ramamoorthy, A. Rao and A. Yehudayoff proved the following result: Let $p$ be a prime and let $f\in \mathbb F _p[x_1,\ldots,x_{2p}]$ be a polynomial. Suppose that $f(\mathbf{v_F})=0$ for each $F\subseteq [2p]$,…

A set of sets is called a family. 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 $1 \leq…

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 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…

Consider families of $k$-subsets (or blocks) on a ground set of size $v$. Recall that if all $t$-subsets occur with the same frequency $\lambda$, one obtains a $t$-design with index $\lambda$. On the other hand, if all $t$-subsets occur…