O'Neill's supersaturation conjecture for eventown families

From papers

Let n>1n>1, let [n]={1,2,,n}[n]=\{1,2,\ldots,n\}, and let 2[n]2^{[n]} denote the family of all subsets of [n][n]. For a family A2[n]\mathcal{A}\subset 2^{[n]}, write op(A)op(\mathcal{A}) for the number of pairs of distinct members A,BAA,B\in\mathcal{A} such that AB|A\cap B| is odd. Fix an integer ss satisfying

1s2n/22n/4.1\le s\le 2^{\lfloor n/2\rfloor}-2^{\lfloor n/4\rfloor}.

O'Neill's supersaturation conjecture. If A2[n]\mathcal{A}\subset 2^{[n]} consists of even-sized subsets and

A2n/2+s,|\mathcal{A}|\ge 2^{\lfloor n/2\rfloor}+s,

then

op(A)s2n/21.op(\mathcal{A})\ge s\cdot 2^{\lfloor n/2\rfloor-1}.

This conjecture gives a supersaturation bound for eventown: once an even-set family exceeds the extremal size 2n/22^{\lfloor n/2\rfloor}, it predicts a linear lower bound on the number of pairs whose intersection has odd size. The source attributes the conjecture to O'Neill; the supplied material does not establish whether it has been resolved.

Progress summary

Nothing recorded yet. Refresh searches the literature and the public web for attempts on this problem, and writes the first summary here.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Xiaolei Niu, Yinghui Hang and Haitao Cao, “Constructions for supersaturation of eventown problems”, arXiv:2607.20812 (2026).

Additional references

2 papers in this index state this conjecture (2023–2026). The statement above is taken from the most recent of them; the others are arXiv:2302.05586.

Solutions 0

No solutions have been posted yet.