Forbidding intersection patterns between layers of the cube

Abstract

A family ${\mathcal A} \subset {\mathcal P} [n]$ is said to be an antichain if $A \not \subset B$ for all distinct $A,B \in {\mathcal A}$. A classic result of Sperner shows that such families satisfy $|{\mathcal A}| \leq \binom {n}{\lfloor n/2\rfloor}$, which is easily seen to be best possible. One can view the antichain condition as a restriction on the intersection sizes between sets in different layers of ${\mathcal P} [n]$. More generally one can ask, given a collection of intersection restrictions between the layers, how large can families respecting these restrictions be? Answering a question of Kalai, we show that for most collections of such restrictions, layered families are asymptotically largest. This extends results of Leader and the author.