Structure and properties of large cross-intersecting families

Mathematics > Combinatorics [Submitted on 18 Jun 2026] Title:Structure and properties of large cross-intersecting families View PDF HTML (experimental)Abstract:The study of intersecting families, initiated by Erdős, Ko, and Rado, is a central topic in extremal combinatorics. A classical stability result of Hilton and Milner determines the largest non-trivial intersecting family, and in subsequent works researchers developed structural stability results via the notion of diversity. In this paper, we study cross-intersecting families. We establish a structural theorem for large cross-intersecting pairs, extending Kupavskii's theorem from intersecting families to the cross-intersecting setting. Our result characterizes extremal cross-intersecting pairs in terms of their diversity parts and maximal cross-intersecting extensions. As corollaries, we obtain cross-intersecting analogues of several classical theorems, including those of Han--Kohayakawa and Huang--Peng. A key ingredient in the proof is a new shifting method, called the $S_{U,V}^{Q}$-shift, which not only preserves global intersection properties but also maintains certain local substructures after shifting. We expect this method to be useful elsewhere, and it is already one of the key tools in establishing a product analogue of the Hilton--Milner theorem. References & Citations Loading... Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Recommenders and Search Tools Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs.