On the size of partial block designs with large blocks (Q2581419)

A hypergraph \(H\) is made up of a set \(V(H)\) of elements (called vertices) and a set \(E(H)\) of subsets of \(V(H)\) (called edges). \(H\) is called \(k\)-uniform if each edge has exactly \(k\) elements in it. A \(k\)-uniform hypergraph with \(n\) vertices and with the property that each subset of \(t\) vertices appears in exactly \(\lambda\) of the blocks is called a \(t\)-\((n,k,\lambda)\) design. If a \(k\)-uniform hypergraph with \(n\) vertices has the property that every \(t\)-subset of vertices is contained in at most \(\lambda\) edges then it is called a partial \(t\)-\((n, k,\lambda)\) design. In this paper some results on \(f_\lambda(n,k,t)\), the maximum size of a partial \(t\)-\((n, k,\lambda)\) design, are presented. The following is the main result providing us with a general upper bound for \(f_\lambda(n, k, t)\), \(\lambda\geq 1\). Theorem: Let \(1\leq k< n\), \(\lambda\geq 1\), and \(t\) be positive integers, and let \(c= k/n\). Then the following is true: \[ f_\lambda(n, k,t)\leq {c^\lambda n-(t- 1)\over c^{\lambda+1}n-(t- 1)} {\lambda+1\choose 2} \] provided the denominator is positive. The paper includes three more results on \(f_\lambda(n,k, t)\).