Related papers: Forbidding a Set Difference of Size 1

We show that any family of subsets $A\subseteq 2^{[n]}$ satisfies $\lvert A\rvert \leq O\bigl(n^{\lceil{d}/{2}\rceil}\bigr)$, where $d$ is the VC dimension of $\{S\triangle T \,\vert\, S,T\in A\}$, and $\triangle$ is the symmetric…

In this short note, we address two problems in extremal set theory regarding intersecting families. The first problem is a question posed by Kupavskii: is it true that given two disjoint cross-intersecting families $\mathcal{A}, \mathcal{B}…

A family $\mathcal{F}$ on ground set $[n]:=\{1,2,\ldots, n\}$ is maximal $k$-wise intersecting if every collection of at most $k$ sets in $\mathcal{F}$ has non-empty intersection, and no other set can be added to $\mathcal{F}$ while…

We make some progress on a question of Babai from the 1970s, namely: for $n, k \in \mathbb{N}$ with $k \le n/2$, what is the largest possible cardinality $s(n,k)$ of an intersecting family of $k$-element subsets of $\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$…

The union-closed sets conjecture states that if a family of sets $\mathcal{A} \neq \{\emptyset\}$ is union-closed, then there is an element which belongs to at least half the sets in $\mathcal{A}$. In 2001, D. Reimer showed that the average…

A family of subsets of the set {1,2,...,n} is said to be unbalanced if the convex hull of its characteristic vectors misses the diagonal in the n-cube.The purpose of this article is to develop the combinatorics of maximal unbalanced…

In this paper we study the following set\[A=\{p(n)+2^nd \mod 1: n\geq 1\}\subset [0.1],\] where $p$ is a polynomial with at least one irrational coefficient on non constant terms, $d$ is any real number and for $a\in [0,\infty)$, $a \mod 1$…

We consider families of k-subsets of the standard n-set. Two families F, G are said to be cross-intersecting if every member of F has non-empty intersection with every member of G. A family is called non-trivial if the intersection of all…

A family of permutations A \subset S_n is said to be intersecting if any two permutations in A agree at some point, i.e. for any \sigma, \pi \in A, there is some i such that \sigma(i)=\pi(i). Deza and Frankl showed that for such a family,…

In this paper we study a family of polynomials $$S_n^{(m)}(x):=\sum_{i,j=0}^n\binom ni^m\binom nj^m\binom{i+j}ix^{i+j}\ \ (m,n=0,1,2,\ldots).$$ For example, we show that $$\sum_{k=0}^{p-1}S_k^{(0)}(x)\equiv\frac…

Let $\mathcal{B}(n)$ denote the collection of all set partitions of $[n]$. Suppose $\mathcal{A} \subseteq \mathcal{B}(n)$ is a non-trivial $t$-intersecting family of set partitions i.e. any two members of $\A$ have at least $t$ blocks in…

A classic theorem in combinatorial design theory is Fisher's inequality, which states that a family $\mathcal F$ of subsets of $[n]$ with all pairwise intersections of size $\lambda$ can have at most $n$ non-empty sets. One may weaken the…

A conjecture of Freiman gives an exact formula for the largest volume of a finite set $A$ of integers with given cardinality $k = |A|$ and doubling $T = |2A|$. The formula is known to hold when $T \le 3k-4$, for some small range over $3k-4$…

We call a family G of subsets of [n] a k-generator of (\mathbb{P}[n]) if every (x \subset [n]) can be expressed as a union of at most k disjoint sets in (\mathcal{G}). Frein, Leveque and Sebo conjectured that for any (n \geq k), such a…

We show that for any union-closed family $\mathcal{F} \subseteq 2^{[n]}, \mathcal{F} \neq \{\emptyset\}$, there exists an $i \in [n]$ which is contained in a $0.01$ fraction of the sets in $\mathcal{F}$. This is the first known constant…

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 $\mathcal F$ has covering number $\tau$ if the size of the smallest set intersecting all sets from $\mathcal F$ is equal to $\tau$. Let $M(n,k,\tau)$ stand for the size of the largest intersecting family $\mathcal F$ of $k$-element…

We define a necessary and sufficient condition on a polynomial $h\in \mathbb{Z}[x]$ to guarantee that every set of natural numbers of positive upper density contains a nonzero difference of the form $h(p)$ for some prime $p$. Moreover, we…

For a positive integer $d\geq 2$, a family $\mathcal F\subseteq \binom{[n]}{k}$ is said to be d-wise intersecting if $|F_1\cap F_2\cap \dots\cap F_d|\geq 1$ for all $F_1, F_2, \dots ,F_d\in \mathcal F$. A d-wise intersecting family…

A classical result of Kleitman determines the maximum number $f(n,s)$ of subsets in a family $\mathcal{F}\subseteq 2^{[n]}$ of sets that do not contain distinct sets $F_1,F_2,\dots,F_s$ that are pairwise disjoint in the case $n\equiv 0,-1$…