On the number of maximal intersecting \(k\)-uniform families and further applications of Tuza's set pair method (Q2341076)

Summary: We study the function \(M(n,k)\) which denotes the number of maximal \(k\)-uniform intersecting families \(\mathcal{F}\subseteq \binom{[n]}{k}\). Improving a bound of \textit{J. Balogh} et al. [``The typical structure of intersecting families of discrete structures'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1408.2559}] on \(M(n,k)\), we determine the order of magnitude of \(\log M(n,k)\) by proving that for any fixed \(k\), \(M(n,k) =n^{\Theta(\binom{2k}{k})}\) holds. Our proof is based on Tuza's set pair approach. The main idea is to bound the size of the largest possible point set of a cross-intersecting system. We also introduce and investigate some related functions and parameters.