Avoiding brooms, forks, and butterflies in the linear lattices

Abstract: Let

n

be a positive integer,

q

a power of a prime, and

m a t h c a l L_{n} (q)

the poset of subspaces of an

n

-dimensional vector space over a field with

q

elements. This poset is a normalized matching poset and the set of subspaces of dimension

l e f t l f l o o r n / 2 i g h t f l o o r

or those of dimension

l e f t l c e i l n / 2 i g h t c e i l

are the only maximum-sized anti-chains in this poset. Strengthening this well-known and celebrated result, we show that, except in the case of

m a t h c a l L_{3} (2)

, these same collections of subspaces are the only maximum-sized families in

m a t h c a l L_{n} (q)

that avoid both a

w e d g e

and a

v e e

as a subposet. We generalize some of the results to brooms and forks, and we also show that the union of the set of subspaces of dimension

k

and

k + 1

, for

k = l e f t l f l o o r n / 2 i g h t f l o o r

or

k = l e f t l c e i l n / 2 i g h t c e i l - 1

, are the only maximum-sized families in

m a t h c a l L_{n} (q)

that avoid a butterfly (definitions below).

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