arXiv subjects

Martin Balko

Publications and source records attributed to Martin Balko.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Bolzano: Case Studies in LLM-Assisted Mathematical Research

We report new results on eight problems in mathematics and theoretical computer science, produced with the assistance of Bolzano, an open-source multi-agent LLM system. Bolzano orchestrates rounds of interaction between parallel prover agents and a verifier agent while maintaining a persistent knowledge base that is carried across rounds. Classified using the significance-autonomy taxonomy of Feng et al., six of the eight results reach the level of publishable research, and five of the eight were produced essentially autonomously by Bolzano. Our results provide evidence that LLMs can contribute meaningfully to mathematical research, complementing recent reports by Bubeck et al., Woodruff et al., and others.

cs.CL↗

arXiv2025

Massively Parallel Proof-Number Search for Impartial Games and Beyond

Proof-Number Search is a best-first search algorithm with many successful applications, especially in game solving. As large-scale computing clusters become increasingly accessible, parallelization is a natural way to accelerate computation. However, existing parallel versions of Proof-Number Search are known to scale poorly on many CPU cores. Using two parallelized levels and shared information among workers, we present the first massively parallel version of Proof-Number Search that scales efficiently even on a large number of CPUs. We apply our solver, enhanced with Grundy numbers for reducing game trees of impartial games, to the Sprouts game, a case study motivated by the long-standing Sprouts Conjecture. Our algorithm achieves 332.9$\times$ speedup on 1024 cores, significantly improving previous parallelizations and outperforming the state-of-the-art Sprouts solver GLOP by four orders of magnitude in runtime while generating proofs 1,000$\times$ more complex. Despite exponential growth in game tree size, our solver verified the Sprouts Conjecture for 42 new positions, nearly doubling the number of known outcomes.

cs.AI↗

arXiv2025

Crossing and non-crossing families

For a finite set $P$ of points in the plane in general position, a \emph{crossing family} of size $k$ in $P$ is a collection of $k$ line segments with endpoints in $P$ that are pairwise crossing. It is a long-standing open problem to determine the largest size of a crossing family in any set of $n$ points in the plane in general position. It is widely believed that this size should be linear in $n$. Motivated by results from the theory of partitioning complete geometric graphs, we study a variant of this problem for point sets $P$ that do not contain a \emph{non-crossing family} of size $m$, which is a collection of 4 disjoint subsets $P_1$, $P_2$, $P_3$, and $P_4$ of $P$, each containing $m$ points of $P$, such that for every choice of 4 points $p_i \in P_i$, the set $\{p_1,p_2,p_3,p_4\}$ is such that $p_4$ is in the interior of the triangle formed by $p_1,p_2,p_3$. We prove that, for every $m \in \mathbb{N}$, each set $P$ of $n$ points in the plane in general position contains either a crossing family of size $n/2^{O(\sqrt{\log{m}})}$ or a non-crossing family of size $m$, by this strengthening a recent breakthrough result by Pach, Rubin, and Tardos (2021). Our proof is constructive and we show that these families can be obtained in expected time $O(nm^{1+o(1)})$. We also prove that a crossing family of size $\Omega(n/m)$ or a non-crossing family of size $m$ in $P$ can be found in expected time $O(n)$.

math.CO↗

arXiv2025

Faces in rectilinear drawings of complete graphs

We initiate the study of extremal problems about faces in convex rectilinear drawings of~$K_n$, that is, drawings where vertices are represented by points in the plane in convex position and edges by line segments between the points representing the end-vertices. We show that if a convex rectilinear drawing of $K_n$ does not contain a common interior point of at least three edges, then there is always a face forming a convex 5-gon while there are such drawings without any face forming a convex $k$-gon with $k \geq 6$. A convex rectilinear drawing of $K_n$ is \emph{regular} if its vertices correspond to vertices of a regular convex $n$-gon. We characterize positive integers $n$ for which regular drawings of $K_n$ contain a face forming a convex 5-gon. To our knowledge, this type of problems has not been considered in the literature before and so we also pose several new natural open problems.

math.CO↗

arXiv2025

A Survey on Ordered Ramsey Numbers

The ordered Ramsey number of a graph $G^<$ with a linearly ordered vertex set is the smallest positive integer $N$ such that any two-coloring of the edges of the ordered complete graph on $N$ vertices contains a monochromatic copy of $G^<$ in the given ordering. The study of the quantitative behavior of ordered Ramsey numbers is a relatively new theme in Ramsey theory full of interesting and difficult problems. In this survey paper, we summarize recent developments in the theory of ordered Ramsey numbers. We point out connections to other areas of combinatorics and some well-known conjectures. We also list several new and challenging open problems and highlight the often strikingly different behavior from the unordered case.

math.CO↗

arXiv2024

On forbidden configurations in point-line incidence graphs

The celebrated Szemer\'edi--Trotter theorem states that the maximum number of incidences between $n$ points and $n$ lines in the plane is $O(n^{4/3})$, which is asymptotically tight. Solymosi (2005) conjectured that for any set of points $P_0$ and for any set of lines $\mathcal{L}_0$ in the plane, the maximum number of incidences between $n$ points and $n$ lines in the plane whose incidence graph does not contain the incidence graph of $(P_0,\mathcal{L}_0)$ is $o(n^{4/3})$. This conjecture is mentioned in the book of Brass, Moser, and Pach (2005). Even a stronger conjecture, which states that the bound can be improved to $O(n^{4/3-\varepsilon})$ for some $\varepsilon = \varepsilon(P_0,\mathcal{L}_0)>0$, was introduced by Mirzaei and Suk (2021). We disprove both of these conjectures. We also introduce a new approach for proving the upper bound $O(n^{4/3-\varepsilon})$ on the number of incidences for configurations $(P,\mathcal{L})$ that avoid certain subconfigurations.

math.CO↗

arXiv2024

On the Uncrossed Number of Graphs

Visualizing a graph $G$ in the plane nicely, for example, without crossings, is unfortunately not always possible. To address this problem, Masa\v{r}\'ik and Hlin\v{e}n\'y [GD 2023] recently asked for each edge of $G$ to be drawn without crossings while allowing multiple different drawings of $G$. More formally, a collection $\mathcal{D}$ of drawings of $G$ is uncrossed if, for each edge $e$ of $G$, there is a drawing in $\mathcal{D}$ such that $e$ is uncrossed. The uncrossed number $\mathrm{unc}(G)$ of $G$ is then the minimum number of drawings in some uncrossed collection of $G$. No exact values of the uncrossed numbers have been determined yet, not even for simple graph classes. In this paper, we provide the exact values for uncrossed numbers of complete and complete bipartite graphs, partly confirming and partly refuting a conjecture posed by Hlin\v{e}n\'y and Masa\v{r}\'ik. We also present a strong general lower bound on $\mathrm{unc}(G)$ in terms of the number of vertices and edges of $G$. Moreover, we prove NP-hardness of the related problem of determining the edge crossing number of a graph $G$, which is the smallest number of edges of $G$ taken over all drawings of $G$ that participate in a crossing. This problem was posed as open by Schaefer in his book [Crossing Numbers of Graphs 2018].

math.CO↗

arXiv2023

Ramsey theorem for trees with successor operation

We prove a general Ramsey theorem for trees with a successor operation. This theorem is a common generalization of the Carlson-Simpson Theorem and the Milliken Tree Theorem for regularly branching trees. Our theorem has a number of applications both in finite and infinite combinatorics. For example, we give a short proof of the unrestricted Nešetřil-Rödl theorem, and we recover the Graham-Rothschild theorem. Our original motivation came from the study of big Ramsey degrees - various trees used in the study can be viewed as trees with a successor operation. To illustrate this, we give a non-forcing proof of a theorem of Zucker on big Ramsey degrees.

math.CO↗

arXiv2023

On Helly numbers of exponential lattices

Given a set $S \subseteq \mathbb{R}^2$, define the \emph{Helly number of $S$}, denoted by $H(S)$, as the smallest positive integer $N$, if it exists, for which the following statement is true: for any finite family $\mathcal{F}$ of convex sets in~$\mathbb{R}^2$ such that the intersection of any $N$ or fewer members of~$\mathcal{F}$ contains at least one point of $S$, there is a point of $S$ common to all members of $\mathcal{F}$. We prove that the Helly numbers of \emph{exponential lattices} $\{α^n \colon n \in \mathbb{N}_0\}^2$ are finite for every $α>1$ and we determine their exact values in some instances. In particular, we obtain $H(\{2^n \colon n \in \mathbb{N}_0\}^2)=5$, solving a problem posed by Dillon (2021). For real numbers $α, β> 1$, we also fully characterize exponential lattices $L(α,β) = \{α^n \colon n \in \mathbb{N}_0\} \times \{β^n \colon n \in \mathbb{N}_0\}$ with finite Helly numbers by showing that $H(L(α,β))$ is finite if and only if $\log_α(β)$ is rational.

math.CO↗

arXiv2023

On ordered Ramsey numbers of matchings versus triangles

For graphs $G^<$ and $H^<$ with linearly ordered vertex sets, the \ordered Ramsey number $r_<(G^<,H^<)$ is the smallest positive integer $N$ such that any red-blue coloring of the edges of the complete ordered graph $K^<_N$ on $N$ vertices contains either a blue copy of $G^<$ or a red copy of $H^<$. Motivated by a problem of Conlon, Fox, Lee, and Sudakov (2017), we study the numbers $r_<(M^<,K^<_3)$ where $M^<$ is an ordered matching on $n$ vertices. We prove that almost all $n$-vertex ordered matchings $M^<$ with interval chromatic number 2 satisfy $r_<(M^<,K^<_3) \in Ω((n/\log n)^{5/4})$ and $r_<(M^<,K^<_3) \in O(n^{7/4})$, improving a recent result by Rohatgi (2019). We also show that there are $n$-vertex ordered matchings $M^<$ with interval chromatic number at least 3 satisfying $r_<(M^<,K^<_3) \in Ω((n/\log n)^{4/3})$, which asymptotically matches the best known lower bound on these off-diagonal ordered Ramsey numbers for general $n$-vertex ordered matchings.

math.CO↗

arXiv2023

Characterisation of the big Ramsey degrees of the generic partial order

As a result of 33 intercontinental Zoom calls, we characterise big Ramsey degrees of the generic partial order. This is an infinitary extension of the well known fact that finite partial orders endowed with linear extensions form a Ramsey class (this result was announced by Ne\v{s}et\v{r}il and R\"odl in 1984 with first published proof by Paoli, Trotter and Walker in 1985). Towards this, we refine earlier upper bounds obtained by Hubi\v{c}ka based on a new connection of big Ramsey degrees to the Carlson-Simpson theorem and we also introduce a new technique of giving lower bounds using an iterated application of the upper-bound theorem.

math.CO↗

arXiv2022

On ordered Ramsey numbers of tripartite 3-uniform hypergraphs

For an integer $k \geq 2$, an ordered $k$-uniform hypergraph $\mathcal{H}=(H,<)$ is a $k$-uniform hypergraph $H$ together with a fixed linear ordering $<$ of its vertex set. The ordered Ramsey number $\overline{R}(\mathcal{H},\mathcal{G})$ of two ordered $k$-uniform hypergraphs $\mathcal{H}$ and $\mathcal{G}$ is the smallest $N \in \mathbb{N}$ such that every red-blue coloring of the hyperedges of the ordered complete $k$-uniform hypergraph $\mathcal{K}^{(k)}_N$ on $N$ vertices contains a blue copy of $\mathcal{H}$ or a red copy of $\mathcal{G}$. The ordered Ramsey numbers are quite extensively studied for ordered graphs, but little is known about ordered hypergraphs of higher uniformity. We provide some of the first nontrivial estimates on ordered Ramsey numbers of ordered 3-uniform hypergraphs. In particular, we prove that for all $d,n \in \mathbb{N}$ and for every ordered $3$-uniform hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$ on $n$ vertices with maximum degree $d$ and with interval chromatic number $3$ there is an $\varepsilon=\varepsilon(d)>0$ such that $$\overline{R}(\mathcal{H},\mathcal{H}) \leq 2^{O(n^{2-\varepsilon})}.$$ In fact, we prove this upper bound for the number $\overline{R}(\mathcal{G},\mathcal{K}^{(3)}_3(n))$, where $\mathcal{G}$ is an ordered 3-uniform hypergraph with $n$ vertices and maximum degree $d$ and $\mathcal{K}^{(3)}_3(n)$ is the ordered complete tripartite hypergraph with consecutive color classes of size $n$. We show that this bound is not far from the truth by proving $\overline{R}(\mathcal{H},\mathcal{K}^{(3)}_3(n)) \geq 2^{Ω(n\log{n})}$ for some fixed ordered $3$-uniform hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$.

math.CO↗

arXiv2022

On off-diagonal ordered Ramsey numbers of nested matchings

For two graphs $G^<$ and $H^<$ with linearly ordered vertex sets, the ordered Ramsey number $r_<(G^<,H^<)$ is the minimum $N$ such that every red-blue coloring of the edges of the ordered complete graph on $N$ vertices contains a red copy of $G^<$ or a blue copy of $H^<$. For a positive integer $n$, a nested matching $NM^<_n$ is the ordered graph on $2n$ vertices with edges $\{i,2n-i+1\}$ for every $i=1,\dots,n$. We improve bounds on the ordered Ramsey numbers $r_<(NM^<_n,K^<_3)$ obtained by Rohatgi, we disprove his conjecture by showing $4n+1 \leq r_<(NM^<_n,K^<_3) \leq (3+\sqrt{5})n$ for every $n \geq 6$, and we determine the numbers $r_<(NM^<_n,K^<_3)$ exactly for $n=4,5$. As a corollary, this gives stronger lower bounds on the maximum chromatic number of $k$-queue graphs for every $k \geq 3$. We also prove $r_<(NM^<_m,K^<_n)=Θ(mn)$ for arbitrary $m$ and $n$. We expand the classical notion of Ramsey goodness to the ordered case and we attempt to characterize all connected ordered graphs that are $n$-good for every $n\in\mathbb{N}$. In particular, we discover a new class of ordered trees that are $n$-good for every $n \in \mathbb{N}$, extending all the previously known examples.

math.CO↗

arXiv2022

The constant of point-line incidence constructions

We study a lower bound for the constant of the Szemerédi-Trotter theorem. In particular, we show that a recent infinite family of point-line configurations satisfies $I({\mathcal P},{\mathcal L})\ge (c+o(1)) |{\mathcal P}|^{2/3}|{\mathcal L}|^{2/3}$, with $c\approx 1.27$. Our technique is based on studying a variety of properties of Euler's totient function. We also improve the current best constant for Elekes's construction from 1 to about 1.27. From an expository perspective, this is the first full analysis of the constant of Erd\H os's construction.

math.CO↗

arXiv2022

Erdős--Szekeres-type problems in the real projective plane

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 $S \subseteq \mathbb{R}^2$ is a set of $k$ points from $S$ in convex position with no point of $S$ in the interior of their convex hull. After introducing a new notion of $k$-holes for points sets from $\mathbb{R}P^2$, called projective $k$-holes, we find arbitrarily large finite sets of points from $\mathbb{R}P^2$ with no \projective 8-holes, providing an analogue of a classical planar construction by Horton from 1983. We also prove that they contain only quadratically many \projective $k$-holes for $k \leq 7$. On the other hand, we show that the number of $k$-holes can be substantially larger in~$\mathbb{R}P^2$ than in $\mathbb{R}^2$ by constructing, for every $k \in \{3,\dots,6\}$, sets of $n$ points from $\mathbb{R}^2 \subset \mathbb{R}P^2$ with $Ω(n^{3-3/5k})$ \projective $k$-holes and only $O(n^2)$ \affine $k$-holes. Last but not least, we prove several other results, for example about projective holes in random point sets in $\mathbb{R}P^2$ and about some algorithmic aspects. The study of extremal problems about point sets in $\mathbb{R}P^2$ opens a new area of research, which we support by posing several open problems.

math.CO↗

arXiv2022

Bounding and computing obstacle numbers of graphs

An obstacle representation of a graph $G$ consists of a set of pairwise disjoint simply-connected closed regions and a one-to-one mapping of the vertices of $G$ to points such that two vertices are adjacent in $G$ if and only if the line segment connecting the two corresponding points does not intersect any obstacle. The obstacle number of a graph is the smallest number of obstacles in an obstacle representation of the graph in the plane such that all obstacles are simple polygons. It is known that the obstacle number of each $n$-vertex graph is $O(n \log n)$ [Balko, Cibulka, and Valtr, 2018] and that there are $n$-vertex graphs whose obstacle number is $\Omega(n/(\log\log n)^2)$ [Dujmovi\'c and Morin, 2015]. We improve this lower bound to $\Omega(n/\log\log n)$ for simple polygons and to $\Omega(n)$ for convex polygons. To obtain these stronger bounds, we improve known estimates on the number of $n$-vertex graphs with bounded obstacle number, solving a conjecture by Dujmovi\'c and Morin. We also show that if the drawing of some $n$-vertex graph is given as part of the input, then for some drawings $\Omega(n^2)$ obstacles are required to turn them into an obstacle representation of the graph. Our bounds are asymptotically tight in several instances. We complement these combinatorial bounds by two complexity results. First, we show that computing the obstacle number of a graph $G$ is fixed-parameter tractable in the vertex cover number of $G$. Second, we show that, given a graph $G$ and a simple polygon $P$, it is NP-hard to decide whether $G$ admits an obstacle representation using $P$ as the only obstacle.

cs.CG↗

arXiv2022

Holes and islands in random point sets

For $d\in\mathbb{N}$, let $S$ be a set of points in $\mathbb{R}^d$ in general position. A set $I$ of $k$ points from $S$ is a $k$-island in $S$ if the convex hull $\mathrm{conv}(I)$ of $I$ satisfies $\mathrm{conv}(I) \cap S = I$. A $k$-island in $S$ in convex position is a $k$-hole in $S$. For $d,k\in\mathbb{N}$ and a convex body $K\subseteq\mathbb{R}^d$ of volume $1$, let $S$ be a set of $n$ points chosen uniformly and independently at random from $K$. We show that the expected number of $k$-holes in $S$ is in $O(n^d)$. Our estimate improves and generalizes all previous bounds. In particular, we estimate the expected number of empty simplices in $S$ by $2^{d-1}\cdot d!\cdot\binom{n}{d}$. This is tight in the plane up to a lower-order term. Our method gives an asymptotically tight upper bound $O(n^d)$ even in the much more general setting, where we estimate the expected number of $k$-islands in $S$.

math.CO↗

arXiv2022

Tight bounds on the expected number of holes in random point sets

For integers $d \geq 2$ and $k \geq d+1$, a $k$-hole in a set $S$ of points in general position in $\mathbb{R}^d$ is a $k$-tuple of points from $S$ in convex position such that the interior of their convex hull does not contain any point from $S$. For a convex body $K \subseteq \mathbb{R}^d$ of unit $d$-dimensional volume, we study the expected number $EH^K_{d,k}(n)$ of $k$-holes in a set of $n$ points drawn uniformly and independently at random from $K$. We prove an asymptotically tight lower bound on $EH^K_{d,k}(n)$ by showing that, for all fixed integers $d \geq 2$ and $k\geq d+1$, the number $EH_{d,k}^K(n)$ is at least $Ω(n^d)$. For some small holes, we even determine the leading constant $\lim_{n \to \infty}n^{-d}EH^K_{d,k}(n)$ exactly. We improve the currently best known lower bound on $\lim_{n \to \infty}n^{-d}EH^K_{d,d+1}(n)$ by Reitzner and Temesvari (2019). In the plane, we show that the constant $\lim_{n \to \infty}n^{-2}EH^K_{2,k}(n)$ is independent of $K$ for every fixed $k \geq 3$ and we compute it exactly for $k=4$, improving earlier estimates by Fabila-Monroy, Huemer, and Mitsche (2015) and by the authors (2020).

math.CO↗