Size and structure of large \((s,t)\)-union intersecting families (Q2138583)

Summary: A family \(F\) of \(k\)-sets on an \(n\)-set \(X\) is said to be an \((s,t)\)-union intersecting family if for any \(A_1,\ldots,A_{s+t}\) in this family, we have \(\left(\cup_{i=1}^s A_i\right)\cap\left(\cup_{i=1}^t A_{i+s}\right)\neq \emptyset\). The celebrated Erdős-Ko-Rado theorem determines the size and structure of the largest intersecting (or \((1,1)\)-union intersecting) family. Also, the Hilton-Milner theorem determines the size and structure of the second largest \((1,1)\)-union intersecting family of \(k\)-sets. In this paper, for \(t\geq s\geq 1\) and sufficiently large \(n\), we find out the size and structure of some large and maximal \((s,t)\)-union intersecting families. Our results are nontrivial extensions of some recent generalizations of the Erdős-Ko-Rado theorem such as the \textit{J. Han} and \textit{Y. Kohayakawa} theorem [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 145, No. 1, 73--87 (2017; Zbl 1350.05169)] which finds the structure of the third largest intersecting family, the \textit{A. Kostochka} and \textit{D. Mubayi} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 145, No. 6, 2311--2321 (2017; Zbl 1358.05039)] theorem, and the more recent \textit{A. Kupavskii}'s theorem [``Structure and properties of large intersecting families'', Preprint; \url{arXiv:1810.00920v1}] whose both results determine the size and structure of the \(i\)th largest intersecting family of \(k\)-sets for \(i \leq k+1\). In particular, when \(s=1\), we confirm a conjecture of \textit{M. Alishahi} and \textit{A. Taherkhani} [J. Comb. Theory, Ser. A 159, 269--282 (2018; Zbl 1392.05108)]. As another consequence, our result provides some stability results related to the famous Erdős matching conjecture.