On Turán numbers for disconnected hypergraphs

Abstract

We introduce the following simpler variant of the Turán problem: Given integers $n>k>r\geq 2$ and $m\geq 1$, what is the smallest integer $t$ for which there exists an $r$-uniform hypergraph with $n$ vertices, $t$ edges and $m$ connected components such that any $k$-subset of the vertex set contains at least one edge? We prove some general estimates for this quantity and for its limit, normalized by $\binom{n}{r}$, as $n\rightarrow \infty$. Moreover, we give a complete solution of the problem for the particular case when $k=5$, $r=3$ and $m\geq 2$.