Skip to main content
Log in

Stability Through Non-Shadows

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Combinatorica Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

We study families \({\mathcal {F}}\subseteq 2^{[n]}\) with restricted intersections and prove a conjecture of Snevily in a stronger form for large n. We also obtain stability results for Kleitman’s isodiametric inequality and families with bounded set-wise differences. Our proofs introduce a new twist to the classical linear algebra method, harnessing the non-shadows of \({\mathcal {F}}\), which may be of independent interest.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

Data Availability

Data openly available in a public repository.

References

  1. Alon, N., Babai, L., Suzuki, H.: Multilinear polynomials and Frankl-Ray-Chaudhuri-Wilson type intersection theorems. J. Combin. Theory Ser. A 58(2), 165–180 (1991)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  2. Babai, L.: A short proof of the nonuniform Ray-Chaudhuri-Wilson inequality. Combinatorica 8(1), 133–135 (1988)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  3. Bannai, E., Bannai, E., Stanton, D.: An upper bound for the cardinality of an \(s\)-distance subset in real Euclidean space. II. Combinatorica 3(2), 147–152 (1983)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  4. Blokhuis, A.: A new upper bound for the cardinality of \(2\)-distance sets in Euclidean space. Convexity and graph theory (Jerusalem, 1981). North-Holland Math. Stud. 87, 65–66 (1984)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Bollobás, B.: On generalized graphs. Acta Math. Acad. Sci. Hungar. 16, 447–452 (1965)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  6. Chen, W.Y.C., Liu, J.: Set systems with \(L\)-intersections modulo a prime number. J. Comb. Theory Ser. A 116(1), 120–131 (2009)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  7. Cvetković, D.M.: Chromatic number and the spectrum of a graph. Publ. Inst. Math. (Beograd) (N.S.) 14(28), 25–38 (1972)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  8. Erdős, P., Ko, C., Rado, R.: Intersection theorems for systems of finite sets. Quart. J. Math. Oxford Ser. 2(12), 313–320 (1961)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  9. Fisher, R.A.: An examination of the different possible solutions of a problem in incomplete blocks. Ann. Eugenics 10, 52–75 (1940)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  10. Frankl, P.: Bounding the size of a family knowing the cardinality of differences. Studia Sci. Math. Hungar. 20(1–4), 33–36 (1985)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  11. Frankl, P.: Antichains of fixed diameter. Mosc. J. Comb. Number Theory 7(3), 3–33 (2017)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  12. Frankl, P.: A stability result for families with fixed diameter. Combin. Probab. Comput. 26(4), 506–516 (2017)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  13. Frankl, P.: A stability result for the Katona theorem. J. Comb. Theory Ser. B 122, 869–876 (2017)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  14. Frankl, P., Wilson, R.M.: Intersection theorems with geometric consequences. Combinatorica 1(4), 357–368 (1981)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  15. Gerbner, D., Patkós, B.: Extremal finite set theory. Discrete Mathematics and its Applications. CRC Press, Boca Raton (2019)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  16. Hilton, A.J.W., Milner, E.C.: Some intersection theorems for systems of finite sets. Quart. J. Math. Oxford Ser. 2(18), 369–384 (1967)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  17. Huang, H., Klurman, O., Pohoata, C.: On subsets of the hypercube with prescribed Hamming distances. J. Comb. Theory Ser. A 171, 105156 (2020)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  18. Hwang, K.-W., Kim, Y.: A proof of Alon-Babai-Suzuki’s conjecture and multilinear polynomials. Eur. J. Comb. 43, 289–294 (2015)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  19. Hwang, K.-W., Sheikh, N.N.: Intersection families and Snevily’s conjecture. Eur. J. Comb. 28(3), 843–847 (2007)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  20. Katona, G.: Intersection theorems for systems of finite sets. Acta Math. Acad. Sci. Hungar. 15, 329–337 (1964)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  21. Katona, G.O.H.: Open problems. Matematikus Kurir (1983)

  22. Kleitman, D.J.: On a combinatorial conjecture of Erdős. J. Comb. Theory 1, 209–214 (1966)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  23. Lubell, D.: A short proof of Sperner’s lemma. J. Comb. Theory 1, 299 (1966)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  24. Mešalkin, L.D.: A generalization of Sperner’s theorem on the number of subsets of a finite set. Teor. Verojatnost. i Primenen 8, 219–220 (1963)

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  25. Mubayi, D., Zhao, Y.: On the VC-dimension of uniform hypergraphs. J. Algebraic Comb. 25(1), 101–110 (2007)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  26. Ray-Chaudhuri, D.K., Wilson, R.M.: On \(t\)-designs. Osaka Math. J. 12(3), 737–744 (1975)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  27. Snevily, H.S.: On generalizations of the de Bruijn-Erdős theorem. J. Combin. Theory Ser. A 68(1), 232–238 (1994)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  28. Snevily, H.S.: A generalization of the Ray-Chaudhuri-Wilson theorem. J. Combin. Des. 3(5), 349–352 (1995)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  29. Snevily, H.S.: A sharp bound for the number of sets that pairwise intersect at \(k\) positive values. Combinatorica 23(3), 527–533 (2003)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  30. Sperner, E.: Ein Satz über Untermengen einer endlichen Menge. Math. Z. 27(1), 544–548 (1928)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  31. Wang, X., Wei, H., Ge, G.: A strengthened inequality of Alon-Babai-Suzuki’s conjecture on set systems with restricted intersections modulo \(p\). Discrete Math. 341(1), 109–118 (2018)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  32. Yamamoto, K.: Logarithmic order of free distributive lattice. J. Math. Soc. Japan 6, 343–353 (1954)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our gratitude to the anonymous reviewer for the detailed and constructive comments which are helpful to the improvement of the technical presentation of this paper. We also thank Yongtao Li and Tuan Tran for helpful discussions.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zixiang Xu.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supported by IBS-R029-C4.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Gao, J., Liu, H. & Xu, Z. Stability Through Non-Shadows. Combinatorica 43, 1125–1137 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00493-023-00053-4

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00493-023-00053-4

Keywords

Navigation