Coordinate deletion of zeroes

Abstract

For a family $A\subseteq {\left\{0,\dots ,k\right\}}^n$, define the $\delta$-shadow of $A$ to be the set obtained from $A$ by removing from any of its vectors one coordinate that equals zero. Given the size of $A$, how should we choose $A$ to minimise its $\delta$-shadow? Our aim in this paper is to show that, for any $r$, the family of all sequences with at most $r$ zeros has minimal $\delta$-shadow. We actually give the exact best $A$ for every size.