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arXiv · 2411.14634

Combining the theorems of Tur\'an and de Bruijn-Erd\H os

Sayok Chakravarty·Dhruv Mubayi
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Abstract

Fix an integer $s \ge 2$. Let $\mathcal{P}$ be a set of $n$ points and let $\mathcal{L}$ be a set of lines in a linear space such that no line in $\mathcal{L}$ contains more than $(n-1)/(s-1)$ points of $\mathcal{P}$. Suppose that for every $s$-set $S$ in $\mathcal{P}$, there is a pair of points in $S$ that lies in a line from $\mathcal{L}$. We prove that $|\mathcal{L}| \ge (n-1)/(s-1)+s-1$ for $n$ large, and this is sharp when $n-1$ is a multiple of $s-1$. This generalizes the de Bruijn-Erd\H os theorem which is the case $s=2$. Our result is proved in the more general setting of linear hypergraphs.

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Sayok Chakravarty, Dhruv Mubayi. 2024-11-21. Combining the theorems of Tur\'an and de Bruijn-Erd\H os. https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.14634

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