Related papers: On the number of union-free families

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…

Let $m(n)$ denote the maximum size of a family of subsets which does not contain two disjoint sets along with their union. In 1968 Kleitman proved that $m(n) = {n\choose m+1}+\ldots +{n\choose 2m+1}$ if $n=3m+1$. Confirming the conjecture…

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…

A collection of $k$ sets is said to form a $k$-sunflower, or $\Delta$-system, if the intersection of any two sets from the collection is the same, and we call a family of sets $\mathcal{F}$ sunflower-free if it contains no sunflowers.…

Two subsets $A$ and $B$ of a ground set $X$ are \emph{crossing} if none of the four sets $A\setminus B,B\setminus A,A\cap B, X\setminus (A\cup B)$ are empty. Almost fifty years ago, Karzanov and Lomonosov conjectured that every family of…

Let $3\le d\le k$ and $\nu\ge 0$ be fixed and $\mathcal{F}\subset\binom{[n]}{k}$. The matching number of $\mathcal{F}$, denoted by $\nu(\mathcal{F})$, is the maximum number of pairwise disjoint sets in $\mathcal{F}$, and $\mathcal{F}$ is…

For a family $\mathcal{F}$ of subsets of [n]=\{1, 2, ..., n} ordered by inclusion, and a partially ordered set P, we say that $\mathcal{F}$ is P-free if it does not contain a subposet isomorphic to P. Let $ex(n, P)$ be the largest size of a…

We call a family $\mathcal{F}$ of subsets of $[n]$ $s$-saturated if it contains no $s$ pairwise disjoint sets, and moreover no set can be added to $\mathcal{F}$ while preserving this property (here $[n] = \{1,\ldots,n\}$). More than 40…

Let $\mathcal{F}_1$ and $\mathcal{F}_2$ be two families of subsets of an $n$-element set. We say that $\mathcal{F}_1$ and $\mathcal{F}_2$ are multiset-union-free if for any $A,B\in \mathcal{F}_1$ and $C,D\in \mathcal{F}_2$ the multisets…

We prove that the largest $Q_2$-free family of subsets of $[n]$ which contains sets of at most three different sizes has at most $(3 + 2\sqrt {3})N/3 + o(N) \approx 2.1547N + o(N)$ members, where $N = {n \choose {\lfloor n/2 \rfloor}}$.…

This paper discusses the question of how many non-empty subsets of the set $[n] = \{ 1, 2, ..., n\}$ we can choose so that no chosen subset is the union of some other chosen subsets. Let $M(n)$ be the maximum number of subsets we can…

We prove that the maximum size of a family of $k$-element subsets of the set $[n] = \{1, 2, \ldots, n\}$ which contains no singleton intersection is $\binom{n-2}{k-2}$ when $3k-3 \le n \le k^2-k+1$. This improves upon a recent result of…

Let $n>2r>0$ be integers. We consider families $\mathcal{F}$ of subsets of an $n$-element set, in which the union of any two members has size at most $2r$. One of our results states that for $n\geq 6r$ the number of members of size…

In the Boolean lattice, Sperner's, Erd\H{o}s's, Kleitman's and Samotij's theorems state that families that do not contain many chains must have a very specific layered structure. We show that if instead of $\mathbb{Z}_2^n$ we work in…

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…

Let $\mathcal{A}$ be a union-closed family of sets with universe $\bigcup_{A \in \mathcal{A}}A = [n] = \{1,\cdots,n\}$ and length $\ell$. We prove that $|\mathcal{A}| \leq \sum_{i=0}^{\ell} \binom{n}{i}$, with equality if and only if…

A family of sets is said to be \emph{intersecting} if any two sets in the family have nonempty intersection. In 1973, Erd\H{o}s raised the problem of determining the maximum possible size of a union of $r$ different intersecting families of…

In 1976 Erdos, Kleitman and Rothschild determined the number of graphs without a clique of size $\ell$. In this note we extend their result to the case of forbidden cliques of increasing size. More precisely we prove that for $\ell_n \le…

The crown $\Oh_{2t}$ is a height-2 poset whose Hasse diagram is a cycle of length $2t$. A family $\F$ of subsets of $[n]:=\{1,2..., n\}$ is {\em $\Oh_{2t}$-free} if $\Oh_{2t}$ is not a weak subposet of $(\F,\subseteq)$. Let…

How large can a family \cal A \subset \cal P [n] be if it does not contain A,B with |A\setminus B| = 1? Our aim in this paper is to show that any such family has size at most \frac{2+o(1)}{n} \binom {n}{\lfloor n/2\rfloor }. This is tight…