A refined result on cross-intersecting families (Q6064844)

In the article, a generalised version of a result of \textit{P. Frankl} [in: Combinatorics. Combinatorial colloquium held at Keszthely, Hungary, from 28 June to 3 July 1976. Vol. I and II. Amsterdam-Oxford-New York: North-Holland Publishing Company. 365--375 (1978; Zbl 0401.05001)] on \(t\)-intersecting families is given. For a positive natural number \(n\), let \([n]:=\{1,\ldots,n\}\) and for \(k\leq n\) let \(\binom{[n]}{k}:=\{A\subseteq [n]: |A|=k\}\). A family \(\mathcal{F}\subseteq\mathcal{P}([n])\) is called \(t\)-intersecting if \(|A\cap B|\geq t\) for all \(A,B\in\mathcal{F}\), and two families \(\mathcal{A}, \mathcal{B}\subseteq\mathcal{P}([n])\) are cross-intersecting if for all \(A\in\mathcal{A}\) and \(B\in\mathcal{B}\), \(A\cap B\neq\emptyset\). The main result of the paper states that for positive integers \(k\geq 3\), \(t\geq 1\), and \(n\geq 2k+t-1\), if \(\mathcal{A}\subseteq\binom{[n]}{k+t-1}\) and \(\mathcal{B}\subseteq\binom{[n]}{k}\) are cross-intersecting, \(\mathcal{A}\) is \(t\)-intersecting and \(|\mathcal{A}|\geq 2\), then \[ |\mathcal{A}|+|\mathcal{B}|\leq \binom{n}{k}- \binom{n-k-t+1}{k}- \binom{n-k-t}{k-1}+2. \] Furthermore, all extremal families achieving the extremal bounds are characterized.