Union-free families of sets and equations over fields (Q1073796)

A collection \({\mathcal F}\) of k-element subsets of an n-element set is said to be union-free if the sets \(F_ 1\cup F_ 2(F_ 1,F_ 2\in {\mathcal F})\) are all distinct. Let \(F_ k(n)\) denote the size of the largest union-free \({\mathcal F}\). It is shown that \(F_ k(n)\) lies between two positive multiples of \(n^{\lceil 4k/3\rceil}\). The proof of the lower bound involves the use of elementary symmetric polynomials. A similar result is obtained for weakly union-free collections, where, for any four distinct sets A,B,A',B'\(\in {\mathcal F}\), \(A\cup B=A'\cup B'\) implies \(\{A,B\}=\{A',B'\}\). A recent paper of the authors [Discrete Math. 48, 205-212 (1984; Zbl 0553.05019)] relates the case \(k=3\) to Steiner triple systems.