The Erdős–Ko–Rado conjecture for tilings with arbitrary finite tile sets

From papers

Let ΛN\Lambda\subseteq\mathbb N be a finite nonempty set of allowed tile lengths. For a positive integer nn, let TnΛ\mathcal T_n^\Lambda be the set of partitions of [n]={1,2,,n}[n]=\{1,2,\ldots,n\} into intervals of lengths in Λ\Lambda, and let I(T)\mathcal I(T) denote the set of tiles in a tiling TT. A family FTnΛ\mathcal F\subseteq\mathcal T_n^\Lambda is intersecting if every two distinct tilings in F\mathcal F have a common tile. Let amΛ=TmΛa_m^\Lambda=|\mathcal T_m^\Lambda|, with a0Λ=1a_0^\Lambda=1 and amΛ=0a_m^\Lambda=0 for m<0m<0. Set

λ0=minΛ.\lambda_0=\min\Lambda.

Erdős–Ko–Rado conjecture for tilings. For sufficiently large nn, every intersecting family FTnΛ\mathcal F\subseteq\mathcal T_n^\Lambda satisfies

Fanλ0Λ.|\mathcal F|\leq a_{n-\lambda_0}^\Lambda.

This would extend the proven bound for tile sets containing 11, where the endpoint stars have size an1Λa_{n-1}^\Lambda, and the known 2×n2\times n tilings theorem for Λ={1,2}\Lambda=\{1,2\}. The conjecture concerns arbitrary finite nonempty tile sets and leaves the required threshold for sufficiently large nn unspecified.

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Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Casey Tompkins, “An Erdős-Ko-Rado Theorem for Tilings”, arXiv:2606.06030 (2026).

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