Largest Sperner families with restricted differences

Abstract

Let $L$ be a fixed set of positive integers. A family $\mathcal{F}\subseteq 2^{[n]}$ is called $L$-differencing if $\lvert A\setminus B\rvert\in L$ for every ordered pair of distinct members $A,B\in\mathcal{F}$. A longstanding conjecture of Frankl, proposed in 1985, asserts that every $L$-differencing family has size at most $\binom{n}{|L|}$. We resolve this conjecture asymptotically for every fixed $L$, and obtain the exact answer in the only case in which the conjectured bound could be tight. (1) If $L\ne [s]$ and $n$ is large, then every $L$-differencing family satisfies $\lvert \mathcal{F}\rvert \le \left(\frac{s}{s+1}+o_L(1)\right)\binom{n}{s}$. (2) If $L=[s]$ and $n\ge 2s-1$, then $\lvert \mathcal{F}\rvert\le\binom{n}{s}$, with equality only for $\binom{[n]}{s}$ and $\binom{[n]}{n-s}$. The first result follows by reducing directed differences to restricted Hamming distances. For the exact result, we develop a new homogeneous polynomial method, which might be of independent interest.