We study incidence problems involving points and curves in $R^3$. The current (and in fact only viable) approach to such problems, pioneered by Guth and Katz, requires a variety of tools from algebraic geometry, most notably (i) the polynomial partitioning technique, and (ii) the study of algebraic surfaces that are ruled by lines or, in more recent studies, by algebraic curves of some constant degree. By exploiting and refining these tools, we obtain new and improved bounds for point-curve incidence problems in $R^3$.
Incidences of this kind have been considered in several previous studies, starting with Guth and Katz's work on points and lines. Our results, which are based on the work of Guth and Zahl concerning surfaces that are doubly ruled by curves, provide a grand generalization of most of the previous results. We reconstruct the bound for points and lines, and improve, in certain significant ways, recent bounds involving points and circles (in Sharir, Sheffer and Zahl), and points and arbitrary constant-degree algebraic curves (in Sharir, Sheffer and Solomon). While in these latter instances the bounds are not known (and are strongly suspected not) to be tight, our bounds are, in a certain sense, the best that can be obtained with this approach, given the current state of knowledge.
As an application of our point-curve incidence bound, we show that the number of triangles spanned by a set of $n$ points in $R^3$ and similar to a given triangle is $O(n^{15/7})$, which improves the bound of Agarwal et al. Our results are also related to a study by Guth et al.~(work in progress), and have been recently applied in Sharir, Solomon and Zlydenko to related incidence problems in three dimensions.
In this paper we prove an incidence bound for points and cubic curves over prime fields. The methods generalise those used by Mohammadi, Pham, and Warren (2021).
We study incidences between points and algebraic curves in three dimensions, taken from a family $C$ of curves that have almost two degrees of freedom, meaning that every pair of curves intersect in $O(1)$ points, for any pair of points $p$, $q$, there are only $O(1)$ curves of $C$ that pass through both points, and a pair $p$, $q$ of points admit a curve of $C$ that passes through both of them iff $F(p,q)=0$ for some polynomial $F$. We study two specific instances, one involving unit circles in $R^3$ that pass through some fixed point (so called anchored unit circles), and the other involving…
We prove new bounds on the number of incidences between points and higher degree algebraic curves. The key ingredient is an improved initial bound, which is valid for all fields. Then we apply the polynomial method to obtain global bounds on $\mathbb{R}$ and $\mathbb{C}$.
We prove an incidence theorem for points and curves in the complex plane. Given a set of $m$ points in ${\mathbb R}^2$ and a set of $n$ curves with $k$ degrees of freedom, Pach and Sharir proved that the number of point-curve incidences is $O\big(m^{\frac{k}{2k-1}}n^{\frac{2k-2}{2k-1}}+m+n\big)$. We establish the slightly weaker bound $O_\varepsilon\big(m^{\frac{k}{2k-1}+\varepsilon}n^{\frac{2k-2}{2k-1}}+m+n\big)$ on the number of incidences between $m$ points and $n$ (complex) algebraic curves in ${\mathbb C}^2$ with $k$ degrees of freedom. We combine tools from algebraic geometry and differe…
We prove bounds on the number of incidences between a set of algebraic curves in $\mathbb{C}^2$ and a Cartesian product $A\times B$ with finite sets $A,B\subset \mathbb{C}$. Similar bounds are known under various conditions, but we show that the Cartesian product assumption leads to a simpler proof. This assumption holds in a number of interesting applications, and with our bound these applications can be extended from $\mathbb{R}$ to $\mathbb{C}$. The proof is a new application of the polynomial partitioning technique introduced by Guth and Katz.
We prove that the number of incidences between $m$ points and $n$ bounded-degree curves with $k$ degrees of freedom in ${\mathbb R}^d$ is \[ I(m,n) =O\left(m^{\frac{k}{dk-d+1}+\varepsilon}n^{\frac{dk-d}{dk-d+1}}+ \sum_{j=2}^{d-1} m^{\frac{k}{jk-j+1}+\varepsilon}n^{\frac{d(j-1)(k-1)}{(d-1)(jk-j+1)}}q_j^{\frac{(d-j)(k-1)}{(d-1)(jk-j+1)}}+m+n\right), \] for any $\varepsilon>0$, where the constant of proportionality depends on $k, \varepsilon$ and $d$, provided that no $j$-dimensional surface of degree $\le c_j(k,d,\varepsilon)$, a constant parameter depending on $k$, $d$, $j$, and $\varepsilon$, …
Using degeneration and Schubert calculus, we consider the problem of computing the number of linear series of given degree $d$ and dimension $r$ on a general curve of genus $g$ satisfying prescribed incidence conditions at $n$ points. We determine these numbers completely for linear series of arbitrary dimension when $d$ is sufficiently large, and for all $d$ when either $r=1$ or $n=r+2$. Our formulas generalize and give new proofs of recent results of Tevelev and of Cela-Pandharipande-Schmitt.
Guth and Katz proved that, as conjectured by Elekes and Sharir, $m$ lines in 3-space have at most constant times $ m^{3/2}$ intersection points, aside from some obvious counter examples. We give an explicit bound for the constant, using the arithmetic genus of the union of the lines.
We study the probability for a random line to intersect a given plane curve, defined over a finite field, in a given number of points defined over the same field. In particular, we focus on the limits of these probabilities under successive finite field extensions. Supposing absolute irreducibility for the curve, we show how a variant of Chebotarev density theorem for function fields can be used to prove the existence of these limits, and to compute them under a mildly stronger condition, known as simple tangency. Partial results have already appeared in the literature, and we propose this wor…
We study a wide spectrum of incidence problems involving points and curves or points and surfaces in $\mathbb R^3$. The current (and in fact the only viable) approach to such problems, pioneered by Guth and Katz [2010,2015], requires a variety of tools from algebraic geometry, most notably (i) the polynomial partitioning technique, and (ii) the study of algebraic surfaces that are ruled by lines or, in more recent studies [Guth-Zahl 2016], by algebraic curves of some constant degree. By exploiting and refining these tools, we obtain new and improved bounds for numerous incidence problems in $\…
Let $L$ be a set of $n$ lines in $R^3$ that is contained, when represented as points in the four-dimensional Plücker space of lines in $R^3$, in an irreducible variety $T$ of constant degree which is \emph{non-degenerate} with respect to $L$ (see below). We show: \medskip \noindent{\bf (1)} If $T$ is two-dimensional, the number of $r$-rich points (points incident to at least $r$ lines of $L$) is $O(n^{4/3+ε}/r^2)$, for $r \ge 3$ and for any $ε>0$, and, if at most $n^{1/3}$ lines of $L$ lie on any common regulus, there are at most $O(n^{4/3+ε})$ $2$-rich points. For $r$ larger than some suffici…
We show that a set of $n$ algebraic plane curves of constant maximum degree can be cut into $O(n^{3/2}\operatorname{polylog} n)$ Jordan arcs, so that each pair of arcs intersect at most once, i.e., they form a collection of pseudo-segments. This extends a similar (and slightly better) bound for pseudo-circles due to Marcus and Tardos. Our result is based on a technique of Ellenberg, Solymosi and Zahl that transforms arrangements of plane curves into arrangements of space curves, so that lenses (pairs of subarcs of the curves that intersect at least twice) become vertical depth cycles. We then …
We prove an incidence result counting the $k$-rich $δ$-tubes induced by a well-spaced set of $δ$-atoms. Our result coincides with the bound that would be heuristically predicted by the Szemerédi--Trotter Theorem and holds in all dimensions $d \geq 2$.
We show that $m$ points and $n$ smooth algebraic surfaces of bounded degree in $\mathbb{R}^3$ satisfying suitable nondegeneracy conditions can have at most $O(m^{\frac{2k}{3k-1}}n^{\frac{3k-3}{3k-1}}+m+n)$ incidences, provided that any collection of $k$ points have at most O(1) surfaces passing through all of them, for some $k\geq 3$. In the case where the surfaces are spheres and no three spheres meet in a common circle, this implies there are $O((mn)^{3/4} + m +n)$ point-sphere incidences. This is a slight improvement over the previous bound of $O((mn)^{3/4} β(m,n)+ m +n)$ for $β(m,n)$ an (e…
We study the metric dimension and optimal split-resolving sets of the point-circle incidence graph of a Möbius plane. We prove that the metric dimension of a Möbius plane of order $q$ is around $2q$, and that an optimal split-resolving set has cardinality between approximately $5q$ and $2.5q\log q$. We also prove that a smallest blocking set of a Möbius plane of order $q$ has at most $2q(1 + \log(q + 1))$ points.
Orbits and incidence matrices for points, planes and lines regarding the twisted cubic in PG(3,q), q = 2, 3, 4
Kharkevich Institute for Information Transmission Problems Russian Academy of Sciences（俄罗斯科学院信息传输问题哈尔维奇研究所）；Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Perugia（佩鲁贾大学数学与计算机科学系）
Let $G=(V,E)$ be a graph. A set of vertices $A$ is an incidence generator for $G$ if for any two distinct edges $e,f\in E(G)$ there exists a vertex from $A$ which is an endpoint of either $e$ or $f$. The smallest cardinality of an incidence generator for $G$ is called the incidence dimension and is denoted by $dim_I(G)$. A set of vertices $P$ is a 2-packing if the distance between any pair of distinct vertices from $P$ is greater than two. The largest cardinality of a 2-packing of $G$ is the packing number of $G$ and is denoted by $ρ(G)$. The incidence dimension of graphs is introduced and stu…
A resolving set for a graph $Γ$ is a collection of vertices $S$, chosen so that for each vertex $v$, the list of distances from $v$ to the members of $S$ uniquely specifies $v$. The metric dimension $μ(Γ)$ is the smallest size of a resolving set for $Γ$. We consider the metric dimension of two families of incidence graphs: incidence graphs of symmetric designs, and incidence graphs of symmetric transversal designs (i.e. symmetric nets). These graphs are the bipartite distance-regular graphs of diameter $3$, and the bipartite, antipodal distance-regular graphs of diameter $4$, respectively. In …
We prove almost tight bounds on incidences between points and $k$-dimensional varieties of bounded degree in $\R^d$. Our main tools are the Polynomial Ham Sandwich Theorem and induction on both the dimension and the number of points.
Given $m$ points and $n$ hyperplanes in $\mathbb{R}^d$, if there are many incidences, we expect to find a big cluster $K_{r,s}$ in their incidence graph. Apfelbaum and Sharir found lower and upper bounds for the largest size of $rs$, which only match in three dimensions. In this paper we close the gap in four and five dimensions, up to some logarithmic factors.
The main purpose of this paper is to prove that the point-line incidence bound due to Vinh (2011) over arbitrary finite fields can be improved in certain ranges by using tools from the VC-dimension theory. As consequences, a number of applications will be discussed in detail.
We derive a general upper bound for the number of incidences with $k$-dimensional varieties in ${\mathbb R}^d$. The leading term of this new bound generalizes previous bounds for the special cases of $k=1, k=d-1,$ and $k= d/2$, to every $1\le k <d$. We derive lower bounds showing that this leading term is tight in various cases. We derive a bound for incidences with transverse varieties, generalizing a result of Solymosi and Tao. Finally, we derive a bound for incidences with hyperplanes in ${\mathbb C}^d$, which is also tight in some cases. (In both ${\mathbb R}^d$ and ${\mathbb C}^d$, the bo…
We prove a new, tight upper bound on the number of incidences between points and hyperplanes in Euclidean d-space. Given n points, of which k are colored red, there are O_d(m^{2/3}k^{2/3}n^{(d-2)/3} + kn^{d-2} + m) incidences between the k red points and m hyperplanes spanned by all n points provided that m = Ω(n^{d-2}). For the monochromatic case k = n, this was proved by Agarwal and Aronov. We use this incidence bound to prove that a set of n points, no more than n-k of which lie on any plane or two lines, spans Ω(nk^2) planes. We also provide an infinite family of counterexamples to a conje…
We present a polynomial partitioning theorem for finite sets of points in the real locus of an irreducible complex algebraic variety of codimension at most two. This result generalizes the polynomial partitioning theorem on the Euclidean space of Guth and Katz, and its extension to hypersurfaces by Zahl and by Kaplan, Matoušek, Sharir and Safernová. We also present a bound for the number of incidences between points and hypersurfaces in the four-dimensional Euclidean space. It is an application of our partitioning theorem together with the refined bounds for the number of connected components …
In this note we give a shortened proof of a theorem of Rudnev, which bounds the number of incidences between points and planes over an arbitrary field. Rudnev's proof uses a map that goes via the four-dimensional Klein quadric to a three-dimensional space, where it applies a bound of Guth and Katz on intersection points of lines. We describe a simple geometric map that directly sends point-plane incidences to line-line intersections in space, allowing us to reprove Rudnev's theorem with fewer technicalities.
In this paper, we prove a new point-sphere incidence bound in vector spaces over finite fields. More precisely, let $P$ be a set of points and $S$ be a set of spheres in $\mathbb{F}_q^d$. Suppose that $|P|, |S|\le N$, we prove that the number of incidences between $P$ and $S$ satisfies \[I(P, S)\le N^2q^{-1}+q^{\frac{d-1}{2}}N,\] under some conditions on $d, q$, and radii. This improves the known upper bound $N^2q^{-1}+q^{\frac{d}{2}}N$ in the literature. As an application, we show that for $A\subset \mathbb{F}_q$ with $q^{1/2}\ll |A|\ll q^{\frac{d^2+1}{2d^2}}$, one has \[\max \left\lbrace |A+…
We give a fairly elementary and simple proof that shows that the number of incidences between $m$ points and $n$ lines in ${\mathbb R}^3$, so that no plane contains more than $s$ lines, is $$ O\left(m^{1/2}n^{3/4}+ m^{2/3}n^{1/3}s^{1/3} + m + n\right) $$ (in the precise statement, the constant of proportionality of the first and third terms depends, in a rather weak manner, on the relation between $m$ and $n$). This bound, originally obtained by Guth and Katz~\cite{GK2} as a major step in their solution of Erd{\H o}s's distinct distances problem, is also a major new result in incidence geometr…
We present a direct and fairly simple proof of the following incidence bound: Let $P$ be a set of $m$ points and $L$ a set of $n$ lines in ${\mathbb R}^d$, for $d\ge 3$, which lie in a common algebraic two-dimensional surface of degree $D$ that does not contain any 2-flat, so that no 2-flat contains more than $s \le D$ lines of $L$. Then the number of incidences between $P$ and $L$ is $$ I(P,L)=O\left(m^{1/2}n^{1/2}D^{1/2} + m^{2/3}\min\{n,D^{2}\}^{1/3}s^{1/3} + m + n\right). $$ When $d=3$, this improves the bound of Guth and Katz~\cite{GK2} for this special case, when $D$ is not too large. A …
Let $d$ and $k$ be integers with $1 \leq k \leq d-1$. Let $Λ$ be a $d$-dimensional lattice and let $K$ be a $d$-dimensional compact convex body symmetric about the origin. We provide estimates for the minimum number of $k$-dimensional linear subspaces needed to cover all points in $Λ\cap K$. In particular, our results imply that the minimum number of $k$-dimensional linear subspaces needed to cover the $d$-dimensional $n \times \cdots \times n$ grid is at least $Ω(n^{d(d-k)/(d-1)-\varepsilon})$ and at most $O(n^{d(d-k)/(d-1)})$, where $\varepsilon>0$ is an arbitrarily small constant. This near…
A matrix is called totally positive if every minor of it is positive. Such matrices are well studied and have numerous applications in Mathematics and Computer Science. We study how many times the value of a minor can repeat in a totally positive matrix and show interesting connections with incidence problems in combinatorial geometry. We prove that the maximum possible number of repeated $d \times d$-minors in a $d \times n$ totally-positive matrix is $O(n^{d-\frac{d}{d+1}})$. For the case $d=2$ we also show that our bound is optimal. We consider some special families of totally postive matri…
We prove an incidence theorem for points and planes in the projective space $\mathbb P^3$ over any field $\mathbb F$, whose characteristic $p\neq 2.$ An incidence is viewed as an intersection along a line of a pair of two-planes from two canonical rulings of the Klein quadric. The Klein quadric can be traversed by a generic hyperplane, yielding a line-line incidence problem in a three-quadric, the Klein image of a regular line complex. This hyperplane can be chosen so that at most two lines meet. Hence, one can apply an algebraic theorem of Guth and Katz, with a constraint involving $p$ if $p>…
Let $E \subseteq \mathbb{F}_q^2$ be a set in the 2-dimensional vector space over a finite field with $q$ elements. We prove an identity for the second moment of its incidence function and deduce a variety of existing results from the literature, not all naturally associated with lines in $\mathbb{F}_q^2$, in a unified and elementary way.
We present a technique for deriving lower bounds for incidences with hypersurfaces in ${\mathbb R}^d$ with $d\ge 4$. These bounds apply to a large variety of hypersurfaces, such as hyperplanes, hyperspheres, paraboloids, and hypersurfaces of any degree. Beyond being the first non-trivial lower bounds for various incidence problems, our bounds show that some of the known upper bounds for incidence problems in ${\mathbb R}^d$ are tight up to an extra $\varepsilon$ in the exponent. Specifically, for every $m$, $d\ge 4$, and $\varepsilon>0$ there exist $m$ points and $n$ hypersurfaces in ${\mathbb…
In this paper, we study the p-ary linear code Ck(n, q), q = ph, p prime, h >= 1, generated by the incidence matrix of points and k-dimensional spaces in PG(n, q). For k >= n/2, we link codewords of Ck(n, q)\Ck(n, q) of weight smaller than 2q^k to k-blocking sets. We first prove that such a k-blocking set is uniquely reducible to a minimal k-blocking set, and exclude all codewords arising from small linear k-blocking sets. For k < n/2, we present counterexamples to lemmas valid for k >= n/2. Next, we study the dual code of Ck(n, q) and present a lower bound on the weight of the codewords, hence…
In this paper, we prove the first incidence bound for points and conics over prime fields. As applications, we prove new results on expansion of bivariate polynomial images and on certain variations of distinct distances problems. These include new lower bounds on the number of pinned algebraic distances as well as improvements of results of Koh and Sun (2014) and Shparlinski (2006) on the size of the distance set formed by two large subsets of finite dimensional vector spaces over finite fields. We also prove a variant of Beck's theorem for conics.
Let $\mathbb{F}_{q}$ be a finite field of order $q=p^k$ where $p$ is prime. Let $P$ and $L$ be sets of points and lines respectively in $\mathbb{F}_{q} \times \mathbb{F}_{q}$ with $|P|=|L|=n$. We establish the incidence bound $I(P,L) \leq γn^{3/2 - 1/12838}$, where $γ$ is an absolute constant, so long as $P$ satisfies the conditions of being an `antifield'. We define this to mean that the projection of $P$ onto some coordinate axis has no more than half-dimensional interaction with large subfields of $\mathbb{F}_q$. In addition, we give examples of sets satisfying these conditions in the impor…
We study the reciprocal position of nine points in the plane, according to their collinearities. In particular, we consider the case in which the nine points are contained in an irreducible cubic curve and we give their classification. If we consider two configurations different when the associated incidence structures are not isomorphic, we see that there are 131 configurations that can be realized in $\mathbb{P}^2_{\mathbb{Q}}$, and there are two more in $\mathbb{P}^2_K$, where $K =\mathbb{Q}[\sqrt{-3}]$ (one of the two is the Hesse configuration given by the nine inflection points of a cubi…
A celebrated unit distance conjecture due to Erd\H os says that that the unit distances cannot arise more than $C_εn^{1+ε}$ times (for any $ε>0$) among $n$ points in the Euclidean plane (see e.g. \cite{SST84} and the references contained therein). In three dimensions, the conjectured bound is $Cn^{\frac{4}{3}}$ (see e.g. \cite{KMSS12} and \cite{Z19}). In dimensions four and higher, this problem, in its general formulation, loses meaning because the Lens example shows that one can construct a set of $n$ points in dimension $4$ and higher where the unit distance arises $\approx n^2$ times (see e…
Let $P$ be a set of $m$ points and $L$ a set of $n$ lines in $\mathbb R^4$, such that the points of $P$ lie on an algebraic three-dimensional surface of degree $D$ that does not contain hyperplane or quadric components, and no 2-flat contains more than $s$ lines of $L$. We show that the number of incidences between $P$ and $L$ is $$ I(P,L) = O\left(m^{1/2}n^{1/2}D + m^{2/3}n^{1/3}s^{1/3} + nD + m\right) , $$ for some absolute constant of proportionality. This significantly improves the bound of the authors, for arbitrary sets of points and lines in $\mathbb R^4$, when $D$ is not too large. The…
Recently Guth and Katz \cite{GK2} invented, as a step in their nearly complete solution of Erdős's distinct distances problem, a new method for partitioning finite point sets in $\R^d$, based on the Stone--Tukey polynomial ham-sandwich theorem. We apply this method to obtain new and simple proofs of two well known results: the Szemerédi--Trotter theorem on incidences of points and lines, and the existence of spanning trees with low crossing numbers. Since we consider these proofs particularly suitable for teaching, we aim at self-contained, expository treatment. We also mention some generaliza…
Given positive integers $k\leq d$ and a finite field $\mathbb{F}$, a set $S\subset\mathbb{F}^{d}$ is $(k,c)$-subspace evasive if every $k$-dimensional affine subspace contains at most $c$ elements of $S$. By a simple averaging argument, the maximum size of a $(k,c)$-subspace evasive set is at most $c |\mathbb{F}|^{d-k}$. When $k$ and $d$ are fixed, and $c$ is sufficiently large, the matching lower bound $Ω(|\mathbb{F}|^{d-k})$ is proved by Dvir and Lovett. We provide an alternative proof of this result using the random algebraic method. We also prove sharp upper bounds on the size of $(k,c)$-e…
