Degrees of freedom versus dimension for containment orders (Q1106866)

A family of sets S has k degrees of freedom if each set in S can be represented by a k-tuple of real numbers and there is a finite list of polynomials in 2k variables such that for every two members T and R of S the containment of T in R can be determined based on the signs of the values of these polynomials computed in the numbers representing T and R. Given a family of sets S, where the sets in S admit k degrees of freedom, we prove that not all \((k+1)\)-dimensional posets are containment posets of sets in S. This result is proved by combining some tools from real algebraic geometry with the following enumerative result of independent interest: Let P(n,k) denote the number of partially ordered sets on n labeled elements of dimension k. Then, for every fixed k, the limit log P(n,k)/(nk log n) tends to 1, as n tends to infinity.