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arXiv · 2109.13106

Bisections of mass assignments using flags of affine spaces

Abstract

We use recent extensions of the Borsuk--Ulam theorem for Stiefel manifolds to generalize the ham sandwich theorem to mass assignments. A $k$-dimensional mass assignment continuously imposes a measure on each $k$-dimensional affine subspace of $\mathbb{R}^d$. Given a finite collection of mass assignments of different dimensions, one may ask if there is some sequence of affine subspaces $S_{k-1} \subset S_k \subset \ldots \subset S_{d-1} \subset \mathbb{R}^d$ such that $S_i$ bisects all the mass assignments on $S_{i+1}$ for every $i$. We show it is possible to do so whenever the number of mass assignments of dimensions $(k,\ldots,d)$ is a permutation of $(k,\ldots,d)$. We extend previous work on mass assignments and the central transversal theorem. We also study the problem of halving several families of $(d-k)$-dimensional affine spaces of $\mathbb{R}^d$ using a $(k-1)$-dimensional affine subspace contained in some translate of a fixed $k$-dimensional affine space. For $k=d-1$, there results can be interpreted as dynamic ham sandwich theorems for families of moving points.

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Ilani Axelrod-Freed, Pablo Soberón. 2021-09-27. Bisections of mass assignments using flags of affine spaces. https://arxiv.org/abs/2109.13106

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