Related papers: The Width of Downsets
The Boolean lattice $\mathcal{P}(n)$ consists of all subsets of $[n] = \{1,\dots, n\}$ partially ordered under the containment relation. Sperner's Theorem states that the largest antichain of the Boolean lattice is given by a middle layer:…
One of the most classical results in extremal set theory is Sperner's theorem, which says that the largest antichain in the Boolean lattice $2^{[n]}$ has size $\Theta\big(\frac{2^n}{\sqrt{n}}\big)$. Motivated by an old problem of Erd\H{o}s…
Let $\mathcal{P}(n)$ denote the power set of $[n]$, ordered by inclusion, and let $\mathcal{P}(n,p)$ be obtained from $\mathcal{P}(n)$ by selecting elements from $\mathcal{P}(n)$ independently at random with probability $p$. A classical…
This is the second in a sequence of three papers investigating the question for which positive integers $m$ there exists a maximal antichain of size $m$ in the Boolean lattice $B_n$ (the power set of $[n]:=\{1,2,\dots,n\}$, ordered by…
An antichain $\mathcal{A}$ in a poset $\mathcal{P}$ is a subset of $\mathcal{P}$ in which no two elements are comparable. Sperner showed that the maximal antichain in the Boolean lattice, $\mathcal{B}_n = \left\{ 0 < 1 \right\}^n$, is the…
This is the second of two papers investigating for which positive integers $m$ there exists a maximal antichain of size $m$ in the Boolean lattice $B_n$ (the power set of $[n]:=\{1,2,\dots,n\}$, ordered by inclusion). In the first part, the…
Dedekind's problem, dating back to 1897, asks for the total number $\psi(n)$ of antichains contained in the Boolean lattice $B_n$ on $n$ elements. We study Dedekind's problem using a recently developed method based on the cluster expansion…
The width of a poset is the size of its largest antichain. Sperner's theorem states that $(2^{[n]},\subset)$ is a poset whose width equals the size of its largest layer. We show that Hamming ball posets also have this property. This extends…
Given a graph G, let Q(G) denote the collection of all independent (edge-free) sets of vertices in G. We consider the problem of determining the size of a largest antichain in Q(G). When G is the edge-less graph, this problem is resolved by…
A family ${\mathcal A} \subset {\mathcal P} [n]$ is said to be an antichain if $A \not \subset B$ for all distinct $A,B \in {\mathcal A}$. A classic result of Sperner shows that such families satisfy $|{\mathcal A}| \leq \binom {n}{\lfloor…
Properties of intervals in the lattice of antichains of subsets of a universe of finite size are investigated. New objects and quantities in this lattice are defined. Expressions and numerical values are deduced for the number of 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…
We prove that there are arbitrarily large indecomposable ordered sets T with a 2-chain C such that the smallest indecomposable proper superset U of C in T is T itself. Subsequently, we characterize all such indecomposable ordered sets T and…
An antichain of subsets is a set of subsets such that no subset in the antichain is a proper subset of any other subset in the antichain. The Dedekind number counts the total number of antichains of subsets of an n-element set. This paper…
Sperner's bound on the size of an antichain in the lattice P(S) of subsets of a finite set S has been generalized in three different directions: by Erdos to subsets of P(S) in which chains contain at most r elements; by Meshalkin to certain…
The Boolean lattice $2^{[n]}$ is the family of all subsets of $[n]=\{1,\dots,n\}$ ordered by inclusion, and a chain is a family of pairwise comparable elements of $2^{[n]}$. Let $s=2^{n}/\binom{n}{\lfloor n/2\rfloor}$, which is the average…
Let $[n] = \{1, 2, \ldots, n\}$ and let $2^{[n]}$ be the collection of all subsets of $[n]$ ordered by inclusion. ${\cal C} \subseteq 2^{[n]}$ is a {\em cutset} if it meets every maximal chain in $2^{[n]}$, and the {\em width} of ${\cal C}…
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…
Building on classical theorems of Sperner and Kruskal-Katona, we investigate antichains $\mathcal F$ in the Boolean lattice $B_n$ of all subsets of $[n]:=\{1,2,\dots,n\}$, where $\mathcal F$ is flat, meaning that it contains sets of at most…
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…