Shattered matchings in intersecting hypergraphs

Abstract

Let $X$ be an $n$-element set, where $n$ is even. We refute a conjecture of J. Gordon and Y. Teplitskaya, according to which, for every maximal intersecting family $\mathcal{F}$ of $\frac{n}2$-element subsets of $X$, one can partition $X$ into $\frac{n}2$ disjoint pairs in such a way that no matter how we pick one element from each of the first $\frac{n}2 - 1$ pairs, the set formed by them can always be completed to a member of $\mathcal{F}$ by adding an element of the last pair. The above problem is related to classical questions in extremal set theory. For any $t\ge 2$, we call a family of sets $\mathcal{F}\subset 2^X$ {\em $t$-separable} if for any ordered pair of elements $(x,y)$ of $X$, there exists $F\in\mathcal{F}$ such that $F\cap\{x,y\}=\{x\}$. For a fixed $t, 2\le t\le 5$ and $n\rightarrow\infty$, we establish asymptotically tight estimates for the smallest integer $s=s(n,t)$ such that every family $\mathcal{F}$ with $|\mathcal{F}|\ge s$ is $t$-separable.