Over the past few years, the codes $\mathcal{C}_{n-1}(n,q)$ arising from the incidence of points and hyperplanes in the projective space $\text{PG}(n,q)$ attracted a lot of attention. In particular, small weight codewords of $\mathcal{C}_{n-1}(n,q)$ are a topic of investigation. The main result of this work states that, if $q$ is large enough and not prime, a codeword having weight smaller than roughly $\frac{1}{2^{n-2}}q^{n-1}\sqrt{q}$ can be written as a linear combination of a few hyperplanes. Consequently, we use this result to provide a graph-theoretical sufficient condition for these codewords of small weight to be minimal.
In this paper we completely characterize the words with second minimum weight in the $p-$ary linear code generated by the rows of the incidence matrix of points and hyperplanes of $PG(n,q)$, with $q=p^h$ and $p$ prime, proving that they are the scalar multiples of the difference of the incidence vectors of two distinct hyperplanes of $PG(n,q)$.
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.
Let $C_{n-1}(n,q)$ be the code arising from the incidence of points and hyperplanes in the Desarguesian projective space PG($n,q$). Recently, Polverino and Zullo proved that within this code, all non-zero code words of weight at most $2q^{n-1}$ are scalar multiples of either the incidence vector of one hyperplane, or the difference of the incidence vectors of two distinct hyperplanes. We improve this result, proving that when $q>17$ and $q\notin\{25,27,29,31,32,49,121\}$, all code words of weight at most $(4q-\sqrt{8q}-\frac{33}{2})q^{n-2}$ are linear combinations of incidence vectors of hyper…
In this paper, we study the p-ary linear code C(PG(n, q)), q = p^h, p prime, h >= 1, generated by the incidence matrix of points and hyperplanes of a Desarguesian projective space PG(n, q), and its dual code. We link the codewords of small weight of this code to blocking sets with respect to lines in PG(n, q) and we exclude all possible codewords arising from small linear blocking sets. We also look at the dual code of C(PG(n,q)) and we prove that find- ing the minimum weight of the dual code can be reduced to finding the minimum weight of the dual code of points and lines in PG(2, q). We pres…
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…
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…
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…
It is known that the Hermitian varieties are codewords in the code defined by the points and hyperplanes of the projective spaces $PG(r,q^2)$. In finite geometry, also quasi-Hermitian varieties are defined. These are sets of points of $PG(r,q^2)$ of the same size as a non-singular Hermitian variety of $PG(r,q^2)$, having the same intersection sizes with the hyperplanes of $PG(r,q^2)$. In the planar case, this reduces to the definition of a unital. A famous result of Blokhuis, Brouwer, and Wilbrink states that every unital in the code of the points and lines of $PG(2,q^2)$ is a Hermitian curve.…
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…
Let $Γ_{n,q}$ be the point-hyperplane incidence graph of the projective space $\operatorname{PG}(n,q)$, where $n \ge 2$ is an integer and $q$ a prime power. We determine the order of magnitude of $1-i_V(Γ_{n,q})$, where $i_V(Γ_{n,q})$ is the vertex-isoperimetric number of $Γ_{n,q}$. We also obtain the exact values of $i_V(Γ_{2,q})$ and the related incidence-free number of $Γ_{2,q}$ for $q \le 16$.
Let Ck(n, q) be the p-ary linear code defined by the incidence matrix of points and k-spaces in PG(n, q), q = p^h, p prime, h >= 1. In this pa- per, we show that there are no codewords of weight in the open interval ] q^{k+1}-1/q-1, 2q^k[ in Ck(n, q) \ Cn-k(n, q) which implies that there are no codewords with this weight in Ck(n, q) \ Ck(n, q) if k >= n/2. In par- ticular, for the code Cn-1(n, q) of points and hyperplanes of PG(n, q), we exclude all codewords in Cn-1(n, q) with weight in the open interval ] q^n-1/q-1, 2q^n-1[. This latter result implies a sharp bound on the weight of small wei…
Hyperplanes and hyperplane complements in the Segre product of partial linear spaces are investigated . The parallelism of such a complement is characterized in terms of the point-line incidence. Assumptions, under which the automorphisms of the complement are the restrictions of the automorphisms of the ambient space, are given. An affine covering for the Segre product of Veblenian gamma spaces is established. A general construction that produces non-degenerate hyperplanes in the Segre product of partial linear spaces embeddable into projective space is introduced.
The Johnson graph $J(v, k)$ has as vertices the $k$-subsets of $\mathcal{V}=\{1,\ldots, v\}$, and two vertices are joined by an edge if their intersection has size $k-1$. An \emph{$X$-strongly incidence-transitive code} in $J (v, k)$ is a proper vertex subset $Γ$ such that the subgroup $X$ of graph automorphisms leaving $Γ$ invariant is transitive on the set $Γ$ of `codewords', and for each codeword $Δ$, the setwise stabiliser $X_Δ$ is transitive on $Δ\times (\mathcal{V}\setminus Δ)$. We classify the \emph{$X$-strongly incidence-transitive codes} in $J(v,k)$ for which $X$ is the symplectic gro…
Let $\mathbb{F}$ be a field, let $P \subseteq \mathbb{F}^d$ be a finite set of points, and let $α,β\in \mathbb{F} \setminus \{0\}$. We study the quantity \[|Π_{α, β}| = \{(p,q,r) \in P \times P \times P \mid p \cdot q = α, p \cdot r = β\}.\] We observe a connection between the question of placing an upper bound on $|Π_{α,β}|$ and a well-studied question on the number of incidences betwen points and hyperplanes, and use this connection to prove new and strengthened upper bounds on $|Π_{α,β}|$ in a variety of settings.
We show that the number of incidences between $m$ distinct points and $n$ distinct lines in ${\mathbb R}^4$ is $O\left(2^{c\sqrt{\log m}} (m^{2/5}n^{4/5}+m) + m^{1/2}n^{1/2}q^{1/4} + m^{2/3}n^{1/3}s^{1/3} + n\right)$, for a suitable absolute constant $c$, provided that no 2-plane contains more than $s$ input lines, and no hyperplane or quadric contains more than $q$ lines. The bound holds without the factor $2^{c\sqrt{\log m}}$ when $m \le n^{6/7}$ or $m \ge n^{5/3}$. Except for this factor, the bound is tight in the worst case.
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>…
We study the central hyperplane arrangement whose hyperplanes are the vanishing loci of the weights of the first and the second fundamental representations of $\mathfrak{gl}_n$ restricted to the dual fundamental Weyl chamber. We obtain generating functions that count flats and faces of a given dimension. This counting is interpreted in physics as the enumeration of the phases of the Coulomb and mixed Coulomb-Higgs branches of a five dimensional gauge theory with 8 supercharges in presence of hypermultiplets transforming in the fundamental and antisymmetric representation of a U(n) gauge group …
Multisets with few special directions and small weight codewords in Desarguesian planes
Vrije Universiteit Brussel（布鲁塞尔自由大学）；Worcester Polytechnic Institute（伍斯特理工学院）；HUN-REN-ELTE Geometric and Algebraic Combinatorics Research Group（匈牙利研究网络-罗兰大学几何与代数组合学研究组）；Institute of Mathematics, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University（罗兰大学数学研究所）；University of Primorska FAMNIT（普里莫斯卡大学FAMNIT学院）
We prove a point-wise and average bound for the number of incidences between points and hyper-planes in vector spaces over finite fields. While our estimates are, in general, sharp, we observe an improvement for product sets and sets contained in a sphere. We use these incidence bounds to obtain significant improvements on the arithmetic problem of covering ${\mathbb F}_q$, the finite field with q elements, by $A \cdot A+... +A \cdot A$, where A is a subset ${\mathbb F}_q$ of sufficiently large size. We also use the incidence machinery we develope and arithmetic constructions to study the Erdo…
The {\it linear representation} of a subset of a finite projective space is an incidence system of affine points and lines determined by the subset. In this paper we use character theory to show that the rank of the incidence matrix has a direct geometric interpretation in terms of certain hyperplanes. We consider the LDPC codes defined by taking the incidence matrix and its transpose as parity-check matrices, and in the former case prove a conjecture of Vandendriessche that the code is generated by words of minimum weight called plane words. In the latter case we compute the minimum weight in…
The Szemerédi-Trotter theorem gives a bound on the maximum number of incidences between points and lines on the Euclidean plane. In particular it says that $n$ lines and $n$ points determine $O(n^{4/3})$ incidences. Let us suppose that an arrangement of $n$ lines and $n$ points defines $cn^{4/3}$ incidences, for a given positive $c.$ It is widely believed that such arrangements have special structure, but no results are known in this direction. Here we show that for any natural number, $k,$ one can find $k$ points of the arrangement in general position such that any pair of them is incident to…
This paper is concerned with the affine-invariant ternary codes which are defined by Hermitian functions. We compute the incidence matrices of 2-designs that are supported by the minimum weight codewords of these ternary codes. The linear codes generated by the rows of these incidence matrix are subcodes of the extended codes of the 4-th order generalized Reed-Muller codes and they also hold 2-designs. Finally, we give the dimensions and lower bound of the minimum weights of these linear codes.
In [Sharir and Solomon 2015], Sharir and Solomon showed that the number of incidences between $m$ distinct points and $n$ distinct lines in $\mathbb R^4$ is $$O^*\left(m^{2/5}n^{4/5}+ m^{1/2}n^{1/2}q^{1/4} + m^{2/3}n^{1/3}s^{1/3} + m + n\right),$$ provided that no 2-flat contains more than $s$ lines, and no hyperplane or quadric contains more than $q$ lines, where the $O^*$ hides a multiplicative factor of $2^{c\sqrt {\log m}}$ for some absolute constant $c$. In this paper we prove that, for integers $m,n,$ satisfying $n^{9/8}<m<n^{3/2}$, there exist $m$ points and $n$ lines on the quadratic h…
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…
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…
It is known that a linear two-weight code $C$ over a finite field $\F_q$ corresponds both to a multiset in a projective space over $\F_q$ that meets every hyperplane in either $a$ or $b$ points for some integers $a<b$, and to a strongly regular graph whose vertices may be identified with the codewords of $C$. Here we extend this classical result to the case of a ring-linear code with exactly two nonzero homogeneous weights and multisets of points in an associated projective ring geometry. We will show that a two-weight code over a finite Frobenius ring gives rise to a strongly regular graph, a…
In this paper, we study the isomorphism problem for linear representations. A linear representation Tn*(K) of a point set K is a point-line geometry, embedded in a projective space PG(n+1,q), where K is contained in a hyperplane. We put constraints on K which ensure that every automorphism of Tn*(K) is induced by a collineation of the ambient projective space. This allows us to show that, under certain conditions, two linear representations Tn*(K) and Tn*(K') are isomorphic if and only if the point sets K and K' are PGammaL-equivalent. We also deal with the slightly more general problem of iso…
Given a $2^N$-dimensional Cayley-Dickson algebra, where $3 \leq N \leq 6$, we first observe that the multiplication table of its imaginary units $e_a$, $1 \leq a \leq 2^N -1$, is encoded in the properties of the projective space PG$(N-1,2)$ if one regards these imaginary units as points and distinguished triads of them $\{e_a, e_b, e_c\}$, $1 \leq a < b <c \leq 2^N -1$ and $e_ae_b = \pm e_c$, as lines. This projective space is seen to feature two distinct kinds of lines according as $a+b = c$ or $a+b \neq c$. Consequently, it also exhibits (at least two) different types of points in dependence…
