English

Frequent elements in union-closed set families

Combinatorics 2025-07-15 v3

Abstract

The Union-Closed Sets Conjecture asks whether every union-closed set family F\mathcal{F} has an element contained in half of its sets. In 2022, Nagel posed a generalisation of this problem, suggesting that the kkth-most popular element in a union-closed set family must be contained in at least 12k1+1F\frac{1}{2^{k-1} + 1} |\mathcal{F}| sets. We combine the entropic method of Gilmer with the combinatorial arguments of Knill to show that this is indeed the case for all k2k \ge 2, and characterise the families that achieve equality. Furthermore, we show that when F|\mathcal{F}| \to \infty, the kkth-most frequent element will appear in at least (352o(1))F\left( \frac{3 - \sqrt{5}}{2} - o(1) \right) |\mathcal{F}| sets, reflecting the recent progress made for the Union-Closed Set Conjecture.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2412.03862,
  title  = {Frequent elements in union-closed set families},
  author = {Shagnik Das and Saintan Wu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2412.03862},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

12 pages Simplified and strengthened our proofs to obtain Nagel's conjecture in full

R2 v1 2026-06-28T20:23:45.621Z