Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2008
An [n, k, r]-hypergraph is a hypergraph = (V, E) whose vertex set V is partitioned into n k-element sets V1, V2,…, Vn and for which, for each choice of r indices, 1 ≤ i1 < i2 < … < ir ≤ n, there is exactly one edge e ∈ E such that |e∩Vi| = 1 if i ∈ {i1, i2.…, ir} and otherwise |e ∩ Vi| = 0. An independent transversal of an [n, k, r]-hypergraph is a set T = {a1, a2,…, an} ⊆ V such that ai ∈ Vi for i = 1, 2, …, n and e ⊈ T for all e ∈ E. The purpose of this note is to estimate fr(k), defined as the largest n for which any [n, k, r]-hypergraph has an independent transversal. The sharpest results are for r = 2 and for the case when k is small compared to r.