A Bound on the Spectral Radius of Hypergraphs with $e$ Edges

For $r\geq 3$, let $f_r\colon [0,\infty)\to [1,\infty)$ be the unique analytic function such that $f_r({k\choose r})={k-1\choose r-1}$ for any $k\geq r-1$. We prove that the spectral radius of an $r$-uniform hypergraph $H$ with $e$ edges is at most $f_r(e)$. The equality holds if and only if $e={k\choose r}$ for some positive integer $k$ and $H$ is the union of a complete $r$-uniform hypergraph $K_k^r$ and some possible isolated vertices. This result generalizes the classical Stanley's theorem on graphs.