The Saturation Number for the Diamond is Linear

Abstract

For a fixed poset $\mathcal P$ we say that a family $\mathcal F\subseteq\mathcal P([n])$ is $\mathcal P$-saturated if it does not contain an induced copy of $\mathcal P$, but whenever we add a new set to $\mathcal F$, we form an induced copy of $\mathcal P$. The size of the smallest such family is denoted by $\text{sat}^*(n, \mathcal P)$.\par For the diamond poset $\mathcal D_2$ (the two-dimensional Boolean lattice), while it is easy to see that the saturation number is at most $n+1$, the best known lower bound has stayed at $O(\sqrt n)$ since the introduction of the area of poset saturation. In this paper we prove that $\text{sat}^*(n, \mathcal D_2)\geq \frac{n+1}{5}$, establishing that the saturation number for the diamond is linear. The proof uses a result about certain pairs of set systems.