Regular Intersecting Families

We call a family of sets intersecting, if any two sets in the family intersect. In this paper we investigate intersecting families $\mathcal{F}$ of $k$-element subsets of $[n]:=\{1,\ldots, n\},$ such that every element of $[n]$ lies in the same (or approximately the same) number of members of $\mathcal{F}$. In particular, we show that we can guarantee $|\mathcal{F}| = o({n-1\choose k-1})$ if and only if $k=o(n)$.Comment: 15 pages, accepted versio

The minimum number of nonnegative edges in hypergraphs

An r-unform n-vertex hypergraph H is said to have the Manickam-Mikl\'os-Singhi (MMS) property if for every assignment of weights to its vertices with nonnegative sum, the number of edges whose total weight is nonnegative is at least the minimum degree of H. In this paper we show that for n>10r^3, every r-uniform n-vertex hypergraph with equal codegrees has the MMS property, and the bound on n is essentially tight up to a constant factor. This result has two immediate corollaries. First it shows that every set of n>10k^3 real numbers with nonnegative sum has at least $\binom{n-1}{k-1}$ nonnegative k-sums, verifying the Manickam-Mikl\'os-Singhi conjecture for this range. More importantly, it implies the vector space Manickam-Mikl\'os-Singhi conjecture which states that for n >= 4k and any weighting on the 1-dimensional subspaces of F_q^n with nonnegative sum, the number of nonnegative k-dimensional subspaces is at least ${n-1 \brack k-1}_q$. We also discuss two additional generalizations, which can be regarded as analogues of the Erd\H{o}s-Ko-Rado theorem on k-intersecting families

Covering the complete graph by partitions

AbstractA (D, c)-coloring of the complete graph Kn is a coloring of the edges with c colors such that all monochromatic connected subgraphs have at most D vertices. Resolvable block designs with c parallel classes and with block size D are natural examples of (D, c)-colorings. However, (D, c)-colorings are more relaxed structures. We investigate the largest n such that Kn has a (D, c)-coloring. Our main tool is the fractional matching theory of hypergraphs

Covering pairs by q2 + q + 1 sets

AbstractFor given k and s let n(k, s) be the largest cardinality of a set whose pairs can be covered by sk-sets. We determine n(k, q2 + q + 1) if a PG(2, q) exists, k > q(q + 1)2, and the remainder of k divided by (q + 1) is at least √q. Asymptotic results are also given for n(k, s) whenever s is fixed and k → ∞. Our main tool is the theory of fractional matchings of hypergraphs

Combinatorial problems in finite geometry and lacunary polynomials

We describe some combinatorial problems in finite projective planes and indicate how R\'edei's theory of lacunary polynomials can be applied to them

A Universal Homogeneous Simple Matroid of Rank 33

We construct a $\wedge$-homogeneous universal simple matroid of rank $3$, i.e. a countable simple rank~$3$ matroid $M_*$ which $\wedge$-embeds every finite simple rank $3$ matroid, and such that every isomorphism between finite $\wedge$-subgeometries of $M_*$ extends to an automorphism of $M_*$. We also construct a $\wedge$-homogeneous matroid $M_*(P)$ which is universal for the class of finite simple rank $3$ matroids omitting a given finite projective plane $P$. We then prove that these structures are not $\aleph_0$-categorical, they have the independence property, they admit a stationary independence relation, and that their automorphism group embeds the symmetric group $Sym(\omega)$. Finally, we use the free projective extension $F(M_*)$ of $M_*$ to conclude the existence of a countable projective plane embedding all the finite simple matroids of rank $3$ and whose automorphism group contains $Sym(\omega)$, in fact we show that $Aut(F(M_*)) \cong Aut(M_*)$