A332077 Square array of sunflower numbers Sun(m,n) = minimal number of distinct sets of cardinality <= m such that there is a sunflower with at least n sets among them, read by falling antidiagonals; m, n >= 1.
1, 2, 1, 3, 2, 1, 4, 7, 2, 1, 5, 11, 21, 2, 1, 6, 21
Offset: 1
Examples
The table starts: m \n=1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... ---+------------------------------- 1 | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 2 | 1 2 7 11 21 28 43 ... 3 | 1 2 21 ... 4 | 1 2 ... 5 | 1 2 ... ... Row m=1 has Sun(1,n) = n for all n, because any collection of n sets having at most 1 element (which may or may not include the empty set) makes up an n-petal sunflower S with an empty kernel. Columns n=1 and n=2 have Sun(m,n) = n for any m, because any single set A makes up a 1-petal sunflower S = {A}, and any two distinct sets A, B make up a 2-petal sunflower S = {A, B} with kernel {A intersect B}, necessarily not equal to both A and B since they are distinct; then so the petals with at least one of them nonempty.
Links
- H. L. Abbott, D. Hanson, and N. Sauer, Intersection Theorems for Systems of Sets. J. Comb. Theory A 12 (1972) pp. 381-389. doi:10.1016/0097-3165(72)90103-3
- T. Bell, C. Chueluecha and L. Warnke, Note on Sunflowers, Discrete Mathematics 344 (2021), 112340; DOI: 10.1016/j.disc.2021.112367; preprint arXiv:2009.09327.
- P. Erdös and R. Rado, Intersection Theorems for Systems of Sets, Journal of the London Mathematical Society, s1-35 (1960) pp. 85-90. doi:10.1112/jlms/s1-35.1.85
- Polymath wiki, The Erdos-Rado sunflower lemma, as of Feb 5, 2016.
- Anup Rao, Coding for Sunflowers, arXiv:1909.04774 [math.CO], Sept. 2019.
- Terence Tao, The sunflower lemma via Shannon entropy, personal blog "What's new", Jul 20 2020.
- Wikipedia, Sunflower (mathematics).
- Kyle Wood, Example for Sun(3,3)=21, a family of 20 sets with no 3-flowers.
Formula
Sun(m,n) = n for n <= 2 and all m;
Sun(1,n) = n for all n: see Examples for explanation.
Sun(2,n) = n(n-1)+1 if n is odd, (n-1)^2-n/2 if n is even. (Abbott-Hanson-Sauer)
(n-1)^m <= Sun(m,n) <= (n-1)^m*m! + 1. (Erdös & Rado)
Sun(m,n) <= O(n log(mn))^m for m, n >= 2. (Rao)
Sun(m,n) <= O(n log m)^m for m, n >= 2. (Bell-Chueluecha-Warnke)
Sunflower conjecture: Sun(m,n) <= (n*O(1))^m.
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