Repeated columns and an old chestnut (Q396909)

Summary: Let \(t\geq 1\) be a given integer. Let \({\mathcal F}\) be a family of subsets of \([m]=\{1,2,\ldots ,m\}\). Assume that for every pair of disjoint sets \(S,T\subset [m]\) with \(|S|=|T|=k\), there do not exist \(2t\) sets in \({\mathcal F}\) where \(t\) subsets of \({\mathcal F}\) contain \(S\) and are disjoint from \(T\) and \(t\) subsets of \({\mathcal F}\) contain \(T\) and are disjoint from \(S\). We show that \(|{\mathcal F}|\) is \(O(m^{k})\). Our main new ingredient is allowing, during the inductive proof, multisets of subsets of \([m]\) where the multiplicity of a given set is bounded by \(t-1\). We use a strong stability result of \textit{R. P. Anstee} and \textit{P. Keevash} [Eur. J. Comb. 27, No. 8, 1235--1248 (2006; Zbl 1104.05068)]. This is further evidence for a conjecture of \textit{R. P. Anstee} and \textit{A. Sali} [Combinatorica 25, No. 5, 503--518 (2005; Zbl 1107.05090)]. These problems can be stated in the language of matrices. Let \(t\cdot M\) denote \(t\) copies of the matrix \(M\) concatenated together. We have established the conjecture for those configurations \(t\cdot F\) for any \(k\times 2\;(0,1)\)-matrix \(F\).