Two-colouring all two-element maximal antichains (Q1176381): Difference between revisions

Let \(P\) be a (partially) ordered set. A fibre in \(P\) is a subset of \(P\) meeting every maximal antichain of \(P\). The authors answer in the negative the question of Aigner and Andreae (unpublished) whether \(P\) contains a fibre of cardinality at most \(| P|/2\) provided \(P\) does not possess elements comparable to all elements of \(P\). They also disprove a conjecture of \textit{Z. Lonc} and \textit{I. Rival} [J. Comb. Theory, Ser. A 44, 207-228 (1987; Zbl 0637.06001)] that \(P\) contains a fibre whose complement is also a fibre. On the other hand they prove the following restricted version of this conjecture: ``The elements of an arbitrary partially ordered set can be coloured with two colours such that every two-element maximal antichain is two-coloured.'' Finally, the authors mention some open problems.