Traces of uniform families of sets (Q1010900)

Summary: The trace of a set \(F\) on a another set \(X\) is \(F|_X=F \cap X\) and the trace of a family \({\mathcal F}\) of sets on \(X\) is \({\mathcal F}_X=\{F|_X: F \in {\mathcal F}\}\). In this note we prove that if a \(k\)-uniform family \({\mathcal F} \subset \binom{[n]}{k}\) has the property that for any \(k\)-subset \(X\) the trace \({\mathcal F}|_X\) does not contain a maximal chain (a family \(C_0 \subset C_1 \subset \dots \subset C_k\) with \(|C_i|=i\)), then \(|{\mathcal F}| \leq \binom{n-1}{k-1}\). This bound is sharp as shown by \(\{F \in \binom{[n]}{k}, 1 \in F\}\). Our proof gives also the stability of the extremal family.