Closures of Union-Closed Families

Abstract

Given a union-closed family $\mathcal{F}$ of subsets of the universe $[n]$, with $\mathcal{F}$ not equal to the power set of $[n]$, a new subset $A$ can be added to it such that the resulting family remains union-closed. We construct a new family $\overline{\mathcal{F}}$ by adding to $\mathcal{F}$ all such $A$'s, and call this the closure of $\mathcal F$. This paper is dedicated to the study of various properties of such closures, including characterizing families whose closures equal the power set of $[n]$, providing a criterion for the existence of closure roots of such families etc.