A generalization of Erdős' matching conjecture (Q1753109)

Summary: Let \(\mathcal{H}=(V,\mathcal{E})\) be an \(r\)-uniform hypergraph on \(n\) vertices and fix a positive integer \(k\) such that \(1\leq k\leq r\). A \(k\)-\textit{matching} of \(\mathcal{H}\) is a collection of edges \(\mathcal{M}\subset \mathcal{E}\) such that every subset of \(V\) whose cardinality equals \(k\) is contained in at most one element of \(\mathcal{M}\). The \(k\)-matching number of \(\mathcal{H}\) is the maximum cardinality of a \(k\)-matching. A well-known problem, posed by Erdős, asks for the maximum number of edges in an \(r\)-uniform hypergraph under constraints on its \(1\)-matching number. In this article we investigate the more general problem of determining the maximum number of edges in an \(r\)-uniform hypergraph on \(n\) vertices subject to the constraint that its \(k\)-matching number is strictly less than \(a\). The problem can also be seen as a generalization of the well-known \(k\)-intersection problem. We propose candidate hypergraphs for the solution of this problem, and show that the extremal hypergraph is among this candidate set when \(n\geq 4r\binom{r}{k}^2\cdot a\).