For a finite point set $E\subset \mathbb{R}^d$ and a connected graph $G$ on $k+1$ vertices, we define a $G$-framework to be a collection of $k + 1$ points in E such that the distance between a pair of points is specified if the corresponding vertices of $G$ are connected by an edge. We consider two frameworks the same if the specified edge-distances are the same. We find tight bounds on such distinct-distance drawings for rigid graphs in the plane, deploying the celebrated result of Guth and Katz. We introduce a congruence relation on the wider set of graphs, which behaves nicely in both the real-discrete and continuous settings. We provide a sharp bound on the number of such congruence classes. We then make a conjecture that the tight bound on rigid graphs should apply to all graphs. This appears to be a hard problem even in the case of the non-rigid 2-chain. However we provide evidence to support the conjecture by demonstrating that if the Erd\H os pinned-distance conjecture holds in dimension $d$ then the result for all graphs in dimension $d$ follows.
The Fano plane is the unique linear 3-uniform hypergraph on seven vertices and seven hyperedges. It was recently proved that, for all $n \geq 8$, the balanced complete bipartite 3-uniform hypergraph on $n$ vertices, denoted by $B_n$, is the 3-uniform hypergraph on $n$ vertices with the largest number of hyperedges that does not contain a copy of the Fano plane. For sufficiently large $r$ and $n$, we show that $B_n$ admits the largest number of $r$-edge colorings with no rainbow copy of the Fano plane.
We consider the Erdős-Rényi evolution of random graphs, where a new uniformly distributed edge is added to the graph in every step. For every fixed $d\ge 1$, we show that with high probability, the graph becomes rigid in $\mathbb R^d$ at the very moment its minimum degree becomes $d$, and it becomes globally rigid in $\mathbb R^d$ at the very moment its minimum degree becomes $d+1$.
The Erdős-Szekeres conjecture states that any set of more than $2^{n-2}$ points in the plane with no three on a line contains the vertices of a convex $n$-gon. Erdős, Tuza, and Valtr strengthened the conjecture by stating that any set of more than $\sum_{i = n - b}^{a - 2} \binom{n - 2}{i}$ points in a plane either contains the vertices of a convex $n$-gon, $a$ points lying on a concave downward curve, or $b$ points lying on a concave upward curve. They also showed that the generalization is actually equivalent to the Erdős-Szekeres conjecture. We prove the first new case of the Erdős-Tuza-Val…
It is shown that a simple graph which is embeddable in the real projective plane is minimally 3-rigid if and only if it is (3,6)-tight. Moreover the topologically uncontractible embedded graphs of this type are constructible from one of 8 embedded graphs by a sequence of vertex splitting moves. In particular the characterisation of minimal 3-rigidity holds for a triangulated Mobius strip.
It is a famous result of Lovasz and Yemini (1982) that 6-connected graphs are rigid in the plane. This was recently improved by Jackson and Jordan (2009) who showed that 6-mixed connectivity is also sufficient for rigidity. Here we give sufficient graph connectivity conditions for both `forced symmetric' and `incidentally symmetric' infinitesimal rigidity in the plane.
In this paper we investigate Erdős-Ko-Rado theorems in ovoidal circle geometries. We prove that in Möbius planes of even order greater than 2, and ovoidal Laguerre planes of odd order, the largest families of circles which pairwise intersect in at least one point, consist of all circles through a fixed point. In ovoidal Laguerre planes of even order, a similar result holds, but there is one other type of largest family of pairwise intersecting circles. As a corollary, we prove that the largest families of polynomials over $\mathbb F_q$ of degree at most $k$, with $2 \leq k < q$, which pairwise…
Erdős-Beck theorem states that $n$ points in the plane with at most $n-x$ points collinear define at least $c xn$ lines for some positive constant $c$. In this paper, we will present two ways to extend this result to higher dimensions. Our result has application to point-hyperplane incidences and potential application to the point covering problem.
A string graph is the intersection graph of curves in the plane. We prove that there exists an absolute constant $c>0$ such that if $G$ is a string graph on $n$ vertices, then $G$ contains either a clique or an independent set of size at least $n^{c}$.
In this paper we prove an Erdős-Ko-Rado-type theorem for intersecting sets of permutations. We show that an intersecting set of maximal size in the projective general linear group PGL(3,q), in its natural action on the points of the projective line, is either a coset of the stabilizer of a point or a coset of the stabilizer of a line.
Let $P$ be a finite point set in $\mathbb{R}^2$ with the set of distance $n$-chains defined as $$ Δ_n(P)=\{(|p_1-p_2|,|p_2-p_3|,\ldots,|p_n-p_{n+1}|):p_i \in P\}.$$ We show that for $2\leq n=O_{|P|}(1)$ we have $$|Δ_n(P)|\gtrsim \frac{|P|^{n}}{\log^{\frac{13}{2}(n-1)}|P|}.$$ Our argument uses the energy construction of Elekes and a general version of Rudnev's rich-line bound implicit in Rudnev's recent hinge paper which allows one to iterate efficiently on highly intersecting nested subsets of Guth-Katz lines. Let $G$ is a simple connected graph on $m=O(1)$ vertices with $m\geq 2$. Define the …
A special case of a combinatorial theorem of De Bruijn and Erdos asserts that every noncollinear set of n points in the plane determines at least n distinct lines. Chen and Chvatal suggested a possible generalization of this assertion in metric spaces with appropriately defined lines. We prove this generalization in all metric spaces induced by connected chordal graphs.
A two-dimensional direction-length framework $(G,p)$ consists of a multigraph $G=(V;D,L)$ whose edge set is formed of "direction" edges $D$ and "length" edges $L$, and a realisation $p$ of this graph in the plane. The edges of the framework represent geometric constraints: length edges fix the distance between their endvertices, whereas direction edges specify the gradient of the line through both endvertices. A direction-length framework $(G,p)$ is globally rigid if every framework $(G,q)$ which satisfies the same direction and length constraints as $(G,p)$ can be obtained by translating $(G,…
Circle geometries are incidence structures that capture the geometry of circles on spheres, cones and hyperboloids in 3-dimensional space. In a previous paper, the author characterised the largest intersecting families in finite ovoidal circle geometries, except for Möbius planes of odd order. In this paper we show that also in these Möbius planes, if the order is greater than 3, the largest intersecting families are the sets of circles through a fixed point. We show the same result in the only known family of finite non-ovoidal circle geometries. Using the same techniques, we show a stability…
We introduce the theory of div point sets, which aims to provide a framework to study the combinatoric nature of any set of points in general position on an Euclidean plane. We then show that proving the unsatisfiability of some first-order logic formulae concerning some sets of multisets of uniform cardinality over boolean variables would prove the Erdös-Szekeres conjecture, which states that for any set of 2^(n-2)+1 points in general position, there exists n points forming a convex polygon, where n is greater than or equal to 3.
We show the existence of infinitesimally rigid bipartite unit-bar frameworks in $\mathbb{R}^d$. We also construct unit-bar frameworks with girth up to 12 that are infinitesimally rigid in the plane. This answers problems proposed by Maehara.
We show that, for points along the moment curve, the bar-and-joint rigidity matroid and the hyperconnectivity matroid coincide, and that both coincide with the $C^{d-2}_{d-1}$-cofactor rigidity of points along any (non-degenerate) conic in the plane. For hyperconnectivity in dimension two, having the points in the moment curve is no loss of generality. We also show that, restricted to bipartite graphs, the bar-and-joint rigidity matroid is freer than the hyperconnectivity matroid.
In this paper we obtain a new lower bound on the Erdős distinct distances problem in the plane over prime fields. More precisely, we show that for any set $A\subset \mathbb{F}_p^2$ with $|A|\le p^{7/6}$, the number of distinct distances determined by pairs of points in $A$ satisfies $$ |Δ(A)| \gg |A|^{\frac{1}{2}+\frac{149}{4214}}.$$ Our result gives a new lower bound of $|Δ{(A)}|$ in the range $|A|\le p^{1+\frac{149}{4065}}$. The main tools we employ are the energy of a set on a paraboloid due to Rudnev and Shkredov, a point-line incidence bound given by Stevens and de Zeeuw, and a lower boun…
Let $ES(n)$ denote the minimum natural number such that every set of $ES(n)$ points in general position in the plane contains $n$ points in convex position. In 1935, Erdős and Szekeres proved that $ES(n) \le {2n-4 \choose n-2}+1$. In 1961, they obtained the lower bound $2^{n-2}+1 \le ES(n)$, which they conjectured to be optimal. In this paper, we prove that $$ES(n) \le {2n-5 \choose n-2}-{2n-8 \choose n-3}+2 \approx \frac{7}{16} {2n-4 \choose n-2}.$$
A bar-joint framework $(G,p)$ is the combination of a graph $G$ and a map $p$ assigning positions, in some space, to the vertices of $G$. The framework is rigid if every edge-length-preserving continuous motion of the vertices arises from an isometry of the space. We will analyse rigidity when the space is a (non-Euclidean) normed plane and two designated vertices are mapped to the same position. This non-genericity assumption leads us to a count matroid first introduced by Jackson, Kaszanitsky and the third author. We show that independence in this matroid is equivalent to independence as a s…
Let f(n) denote the smallest positive integer such that every set of $f(n)$ points in general position in the Euclidean plane contains a convex n-gon. In a seminal paper published in 1935, Erdős and Szekeres proved that f(n) exists and provided an upper bound. In 1961, they also proved a lower bound, which they conjectured is optimal. Their bounds are: $2^{n-2}+1 \leq f(n) \leq {2n - 4 \choose n-2}+1$. Since then, the upper bound has been improved by rougly a factor of 2, to $f(n) \leq {2n - 5 \choose n-2}+1$. In the current paper, we further improve the upper bound by proving that: $$ \limsup…
De Bruijn and Erdős proved that every noncollinear set of n points in the plane determines at least n distinct lines. Chen and Chvátal suggested a possible generalization of this theorem in the framework of metric spaces. We provide partial results in this direction.
In the category of free arrangements, inductively and recursively free arrangements are important. In particular, in the former, Terao's open problem asking whether freeness depends only on combinatorics is true. A long standing problem whether all free arrangements are recursively free or not was settled by the second author and Hoge very recently, by giving a free but non-recursively free plane arrangement consisting of 27 planes. In this paper, we construct free but non-recursively free plane arrangements consisting of 13 and 15 planes, and show that the example with 13 planes is the smalle…
According to Suk's breakthrough result on the Erdos-Szekeres problem, any point set in general position in the plane, which has no $n$ elements that form the vertex set of a convex $n$-gon, has at most $2^{n+O\left({n^{2/3}\log n}\right)}$ points. We strengthen this theorem in two ways. First, we show that the result generalizes to convexity structures induced by pseudoline arrangements. Second, we improve the error term. A family of $n$ convex bodies in the plane is said to be in convex position if the convex hull of the union of no $n-1$ of its members contains the remaining one. If any thre…
Let $ES(n)$ be the smallest integer such that any set of $ES(n)$ points in the plane in general position contains $n$ points in convex position. In their seminal 1935 paper, Erdos and Szekeres showed that $ES(n) \leq {2n - 4\choose n-2} + 1 = 4^{n -o(n)}$. In 1960, they showed that $ES(n) \geq 2^{n-2} + 1$ and conjectured this to be optimal. In this paper, we nearly settle the Erdos-Szekeres conjecture by showing that $ES(n) =2^{n +o(n)}$.
In this paper, we prove that a set of $N$ points in ${\bf R}^2$ has at least $c{N \over \log N}$ distinct distances, thus obtaining the sharp exponent in a problem of Erdös. We follow the set-up of Elekes and Sharir which, in the spirit of the Erlangen program, allows us to study the problem in the group of rigid motions of the plane. This converts the problem to one of point-line incidences in space. We introduce two new ideas in our proof. In order to control points where many lines are incident, we create a cell decompostion using the polynomial ham sandwich theorem. This creates a dichotom…
We extend our generic rigidity theory for periodic frameworks in the plane to frameworks with a broader class of crystallographic symmetry. Along the way we introduce a new class of combinatorial matroids and associated linear representation results that may be interesting in their own right. The same techniques immediately yield a Maxwell-Laman-type combinatorial characterization for frameworks embedded in 2-dimensional cones that arise as quotients of the plane by a finite order rotation.
This article is concerned with the rigidity properties of geometric realizations of incidence geometries of rank two as points and lines in the Euclidean plane; we care about the distance being preserved among collinear points. We discuss the rigidity properties of geometric realizations of incidence geometries in relation to the rigidity of geometric realizations of other well-known structures, such as graphs and hypergraphs.The $2$-plane matroid is also discussed. Further, we extend a result of Whiteley to determine necessary conditions for an incidence geometry of points and lines with exac…
Graphs triangulating the $2$-sphere are generically rigid in $3$-space, due to Gluck-Dehn-Alexandrov-Cauchy. We show there is a \emph{finite} subset $A$ in $3$-space so that the vertices of each graph $G$ as above can be mapped into $A$ to make the resulted embedding of $G$ infinitesimally rigid. This assertion extends to the triangulations of any fixed compact connected surface, where the upper bound obtained on the size of $A$ increases with the genus. The assertion fails, namely no such finite $A$ exists, for the larger family of all graphs that are generically rigid in $3$-space and even i…
A classical result by Erdős, and later on by Bondy and Simonivits, states that every $n$-vertex graph with no cycle of length $2k$ has at most $O(n^{1+1 /k})$ edges. This bound is known to be tight when $k \in \{2,3,5\},$ but it is a major open problem in extremal graph theory to decide if this bound is tight for all $k$. In this paper, we study the effect of forbidding short even cycles in incidence graphs of point-line arrangements in the plane. It is not known if the Erdős upper bound stated above can be improved to $o(n^{1+1/k})$ in this geometric setting, and in this note, we establish no…
We consider point sets in the real projective plane $\mathbb{R}P^2$ and explore variants of classical extremal problems about planar point sets in this setting, with a main focus on Erdős--Szekeres-type problems. We provide asymptotically tight bounds for a variant of the Erdős--Szekeres theorem about point sets in convex position in $\mathbb{R}P^2$, which was initiated by Harborth and Möller in 1994. The notion of convex position in $\mathbb{R}P^2$ agrees with the definition of convex sets introduced by Steinitz in 1913. For $k \geq 3$, an (\affine) $k$-hole in a finite set $S \subseteq \math…
The uniqueness of the orthogonal Z^γ-circle patterns as studied by Bobenko and Agafonov is shown, given the combinatorics and some boundary conditions. Furthermore we study (infinite) rhombic embeddings in the plane which are quasicrystallic, that is they have only finitely many different edge directions. Bicoloring the vertices of the rhombi and adding circles with centers at vertices of one of the colors and radius equal to the edge length leads to isoradial quasicrystallic circle patterns. We prove for a large class of such circle patterns which cover the whole plane that they are uniquely …
Rigidity is the property of a structure that does not flex. It is well studied in discrete geometry and mechanics, and has applications in material science, engineering and biological sciences. A bar-and-joint framework is a pair $(G,p)$ of graph $G$ together with a map $p$ of the vertices of $G$ into the Euclidean plane. We view the edges of $(G, p)$ as bars and the vertices as universal joints. The vertices can move continuously as long as the distances between pairs of adjacent vertices are preserved. The framework is rigid if any such motion preserves the distances between all pairs of ver…
A rational distance set is a subset of the plane such that the distance between any two points is a rational number. We show, assuming Lang's Conjecture, that the cardinalities of rational distance sets in general position are uniformly bounded, generalizing results of Solymosi-de Zeeuw, Makhul-Shaffaf, Shaffaf, and Tao. In the process, we give a criterion for certain varieties with non-canonical singularities to be of general type.
A set of n points in the plane which are not all collinear defines at least n distinct lines. Chen and Chvátal conjectured in 2008 that a similar result can be achieved in the broader context of finite metric spaces. This conjecture remains open even for graph metrics. In this article we prove that graphs with no induced house nor induced cycle of length at least~5 verify the desired property. We focus on lines generated by vertices at distance at most 2, define a new notion of ``good pairs'' that might have application in larger families, and finally use a discharging technique to count lines…
