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The union-closed sets conjecture (sometimes referred to as Frankl's conjecture) states that every finite, nontrivial union-closed family of sets has an element that is in at least half of its members. Although the conjecture is known to be…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-12-03 Cory H. Colbert

A family of sets F is said to be union-closed if A \cup B is in F for every A and B in F. Frankl's conjecture states that given any finite union-closed family of sets, not all empty, there exists an element contained in at least half of the…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2007-05-23 Robert Morris

For a given number of $k$-sets, how should we choose them so as to minimize the union-closed family that they generate? Our main aim in this paper is to show that, if $\mathcal{A}$ is a family of $k$-sets of size $\binom{t}{k}$, and $t$ is…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-09-06 Žarko Ranđelović

We show that the Union-Closed Conjecture holds for the union-closed family generated by the cyclic translates of any fixed set.

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2020-12-08 James Aaronson , David Ellis , Imre Leader

The Union-Closed Sets Conjecture asks whether every union-closed set family $\mathcal{F}$ has an element contained in half of its sets. In 2022, Nagel posed a generalisation of this problem, suggesting that the $k$th-most popular element in…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-07-15 Shagnik Das , Saintan Wu

The Union-Closed Sets Conjecture, often attributed to P\'eter Frankl in 1979, remains an open problem in discrete mathematics. It posits that for any finite family of sets $S\neq\{\emptyset\}$, if the union of any two sets in the family is…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-05-31 Kengbo Lu , Abigail Raz

A finite family $\mathrsfs{F}$ of subsets of a finite set $X$ is union-closed whenever $f,g\in\mathrsfs{F}$ implies $f\cup g\in\mathrsfs{F}$. These families are well known because of Frankl's conjecture. In this paper we developed further…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2012-10-16 Emanuele Rodaro

Given a finite $n$-element set $X$, a family of subsets ${\mathcal F}\subset 2^X$ is said to separate $X$ if any two elements of $X$ are separated by at least one member of $\mathcal F$. It is shown that if $|\mathcal F|>2^{n-1}$, then one…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2015-08-25 Zsolt Lángi , Márton Naszódi , János Pach , Gábor Tardos , Géza Tóth

The union-closed sets conjecture, also known as Frankl's conjecture, is a well-studied problem with various formulations. In terms of lattices, the conjecture states that every finite lattice $L$ with more than one element contains a…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-03-04 Christopher Bouchard

The union-closed sets conjecture, attributed to P\'eter Frankl from 1979, states that for any non-empty finite union-closed family of finite sets not consisting of only the empty set, there is an element that is in at least half of the sets…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-06-08 Masoud Zargar

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…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-11-29 Justin Gilmer

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. Let $f(n,a)$ be the maximum number of sets in a…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2020-04-14 Brianna Amaral , Lucien Dalton , Drew Polakowski , Annie Raymond , Bertram Thomas

We show that there is some absolute constant $c>0$, such that for any union-closed family $\mathcal{F} \subseteq 2^{[n]}$, if \mbox{$|\mathcal{F}| \geq (\frac{1}{2}-c)2^n$}, then there is some element $i \in [n]$ that appears in at least…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2017-08-07 Ilan Karpas

We verify an explicit inequality conjectured recently by Gilmer, thus proving that for any nonempty union-closed family $F \subseteq 2^{[n]}$, some $i\in [n]$ is contained in at least a $\frac{3-\sqrt{5}}{2} \approx 0.38$ fraction of the…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-07-09 Ryan Alweiss , Brice Huang , Mark Sellke

Suppose that $\mathscr{F}$ is a finite union-closed family of sets with $\cup_{A\in \mathscr{F}}A=\{1,2,\ldots,m\}$ and $m\geq 2$. Fix $i\in \{1,2,\ldots,m\}$ and denote $\mathscr{G}:=\{A\backslash \{i\}: A\in \mathscr{F}\}$. For $j\in…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-09-03 Ze-Chun Hu , Yi-Ding Shi , Qian-Qian Zhou

In this very short paper, we point out that the average overlap density of a union-closed family $\mathcal{F}$ of subsets of $\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$ may be as small as $\Theta((\log \log |\mathcal{F}|)/(\log |\mathcal{F}|))$, for infinitely many…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2021-11-15 David Ellis

Gilmer has recently shown that in any nonempty union-closed family $\mathcal F$ of subsets of a finite set, there exists an element contained in at least a proportion $.01$ of the sets of $\mathcal F$. We improve the proportion from $.01$…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-06-21 Will Sawin

We demonstrate the truth of the sunflower conjecture by showing that a family $\mathcal{F}$ of sets each of cardinality at most $m$ includes a $k$-sunflower, if $|\mathcal{F}| > ( c k )^{2m}$ for a constant $c>0$ independent of $m$ and $k$,…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-04-29 Junichiro Fukuyama

Given a union-closed family $\mathcal{F}$ of subsets of the universe $[n]$, with $\mathcal{F}$ not equal to the power set of $[n]$, a new subset $A$ can be added to it such that the resulting family remains union-closed. We construct a new…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2021-04-20 Dhruv Bhasin

We provide a proof of the union-closed sets conjecture, by means of a suitable refinement of the breakthrough entropy-approach introduced by Gilmer. The novelty here is to consider a convex combination of $A$ and $A\cup B$, where $A,B$ are…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-02-09 Raffaele Scandone