Balanced independent sets and colorings of hypergraphs

Abstract: A $k$-uniform hypergraph $H = (V, E)$ is $k$-partite if $V$ can be partitioned into $k$ sets $V_1, \ldots, V_k$ such that every edge in $E$ contains precisely one vertex from each $V_i$. We call such a graph $n$-balanced if $|V_i| = n$ for each $i$. An independent set $I$ in $H$ is balanced if $|I\cap V_i| = |I\cap V_j|$ for each $1 \leq i, j \leq k$, and a coloring is balanced if each color class induces a balanced independent set in $H$. In this paper, we provide a lower bound on the balanced independence number $\alpha_b(H)$ in terms of the average degree $D = |E|/n$, and an upper bound on the balanced chromatic number $\chi_b(H)$ in terms of the maximum degree $\Delta$. Our results recover those of recent work of Chakraborti for $k = 2$.