Thresholds and spread in set systems of bounded VC-dimension

Source abstract

Let $p_c(\mathcal F)$, $q(\mathcal F)$, and $q_f(\mathcal F)$ denote the threshold, expectation threshold, and fractional expectation threshold of a family $\mathcal F$ of nonempty subsets of a finite set, respectively. We prove that there is an absolute constant $C>0$ such that, if $\mathcal F$ has VC dimension at most $d\ge1$, then $p_c(\mathcal F)\le Cq(\mathcal F)\log(d+1)$. More generally, for every $0<\varepsilon\le1/2$, a binomial random set of density $\min\{1,Cq(\mathcal F)\log((d+1)/\varepsilon)\}$ contains a member of $\mathcal F$ with probability at least $1-\varepsilon$. Consequently, $q_f(\mathcal F)\le Cq(\mathcal F)\log(d+1)$, verifying Talagrand's integral--fractional conjecture for families of any fixed VC dimension. We also prove that if a $k$-spread probability measure has support of VC dimension at most $d$, then a binomial random set of density $\min\{1,(C/k)\log((d+1)/\varepsilon)\}$ contains a member of its support with probability at least $1-\varepsilon$. In both random-containment results, the factor $\log((d+1)/\varepsilon)$ is optimal up to absolute constants. As an application of the spread theorem, we prove that every $n$-uniform family of VC dimension at most $d$ with more than $(C p^{-1}\log((d+1)/\varepsilon))^n$ members contains a $(p,\varepsilon)$-robust sunflower. In particular, every such family with more than $(Cr\log(d+1))^n$ members contains an $r$-sunflower, improving the recent bound $(Crd)^n$ of Ge, Wang, Xu, and Zhao.