A strengthened inequality of Alon-Babai-Suzuki's conjecture on set systems with restricted intersections modulo p

TL;DR

This paper proves a new upper bound for the size of set systems with restricted intersection properties modulo a prime, strengthening previous conjectures and results in combinatorics.

Contribution

The paper establishes a strengthened inequality for set systems with restricted intersections modulo p, valid under broader conditions than prior results.

Findings

Proves the inequality |A| ≤ sum of binomial coefficients for specified n, s, r conditions.

Extends the validity range of the inequality to n ≥ 2s - 2r + 1.

Strengthens the upper bounds conjectured by Alon, Babai, Suzuki, and verified by Hwang and Kim.

Abstract

Let $K=\{k_1,k_2,\ldots,k_r\}$ and $L=\{l_1,l_2,\ldots,l_s\}$ be disjoint subsets of $\{0,1,\ldots,p-1\}$, where $p$ is a prime and $A=\{A_1,A_2,\ldots,A_m\}$ be a family of subsets of $[n]$ such that $|A_i|\pmod{p}\in K$ for all $A_i\in A$ and $|A_i\cap A_j|\pmod{p}\in L$ for $i\ne j$. In 1991, Alon, Babai and Suzuki conjectured that if $n\geq s+\max_{1\leq i\leq r} k_i$, then $|A|\leq {n\choose s}+{n\choose s-1}+\cdots+{n\choose s-r+1}$. In 2000, Qian and Ray-Chaudhuri proved the conjecture under the condition $n\geq 2s-r$. In 2015, Hwang and Kim verified the conjecture of Alon, Babai and Suzuki. In this paper, we will prove that if $n\geq 2s-2r+1$ or $n\geq s+\max_{1\leq i\leq r}k_i$, then \[ |A|\leq{n-1\choose s}+{n-1\choose s-1}+\cdots+{n-1\choose s-2r+1}. \] This result strengthens the upper bound of Alon, Babai and Suzuki's conjecture when $n\geq 2s-2$.