Hypergraphs with many Kneser colorings (Extended Version)

For fixed positive integers $r, k$ and $\ell$ with $1 \leq \ell < r$ and an $r$-uniform hypergraph $H$, let $\kappa (H, k,\ell)$ denote the number of $k$-colorings of the set of hyperedges of $H$ for which any two hyperedges in the same color class intersect in at least $\ell$ elements. Consider the function $\KC(n,r,k,\ell)=\max_{H\in{\mathcal H}_{n}} \kappa (H, k,\ell)$, where the maximum runs over the family ${\mathcal H}_n$ of all $r$-uniform hypergraphs on $n$ vertices. In this paper, we determine the asymptotic behavior of the function $\KC(n,r,k,\ell)$ for every fixed $r$, $k$ and $\ell$ and describe the extremal hypergraphs. This variant of a problem of Erd\H{o}s and Rothschild, who considered edge colorings of graphs without a monochromatic triangle, is related to the Erd\H{o}s--Ko--Rado Theorem on intersecting systems of sets [Intersection Theorems for Systems of Finite Sets, Quarterly Journal of Mathematics, Oxford Series, Series 2, {\bf 12} (1961), 313--320].