An Erdős-Ko-Rado theorem for unions of length 2 paths

DOI10.1016/J.DISC.2020.112121MaRDI QIDQ2005709zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Carl Feghali, Vikram Kamat, Glenn H. Hurlbert

Publication date 8 October 2020

Published in Discrete Mathematics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.08849

zbMATH Keywords

signed setEKR theorem

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Extremal set theory (05D05)

Abstract: A family of sets is intersecting if any two sets in the family intersect. Given a graph $G$ and an integer $rgeq1$, let $mathcal{I}^{(r)}(G)$ denote the family of independent sets of size $r$ of $G$. For a vertex $v$ of $G$, the family of independent sets of size $r$ that contain $v$ is called an $r$-star. Then $G$ is said to be $r$-EKR if no intersecting subfamily of $mathcal{I}^{(r)}(G)$ is bigger than the largest $r$-star. Let $n$ be a positive integer, and let $G$ consist of the disjoint union of $n$ paths each of length 2. We prove that if $1leqrleqn/2$, then $G$ is $r$-EKR. This affirms a longstanding conjecture of Holroyd and Talbot for this class of graphs and can be seen as an analogue of a well-known theorem on signed sets, proved using different methods, by Deza and Frankl and by Bollob'as and Leader. Our main approach is a novel probabilistic extension of Katona's elegant cycle method, which might be of independent interest.

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Cited in

(10)

• On the star of the family of independent sets in a graph
• The Erdős-Ko-Rado properties of various graphs containing singletons
• Compression and Erdős-Ko-Rado graphs
• Graphs with the Erdős-Ko-Rado property
• Very well-covered graphs with the Erdős-Ko-Rado property
• Erdős-Ko-Rado theorems for chordal graphs and trees
• Erdös-Ko-Rado theorems for a family of trees
• On the Holroyd-Talbot conjecture for sparse graphs
• On intersecting families of independent sets in trees
• A proof of the two-path conjecture

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