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 has an element contained in half of its sets. In 2022, Nagel posed a generalisation of this problem, suggesting that the th-most popular element in a union-closed set family must be contained in at least sets. We combine the entropic method of Gilmer with the combinatorial arguments of Knill to show that this is indeed the case for all , and characterise the families that achieve equality. Furthermore, we show that when , the th-most frequent element will appear in at least 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