arXiv subjects

Martin Balko

Publications and source records attributed to Martin Balko.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

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

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↗

arXiv2021

Implementation of Sprouts: a graph drawing game

Sprouts is a two-player pencil-and-paper game invented by John Conway and Michael Paterson in 1967. In the game, the players take turns in joining dots by curves according to simple rules, until one player cannot make a move. The game of Sprouts is very popular and simple-looking, so it may come as a surprise that there are essentially no AI Sprouts players available. This lack of computer opponents is caused by the fact that the game hides a surprisingly high combinatorial complexity and implementing it involves fascinating programming challenges. We overcome all the implementation barriers and create the first user-friendly Sprouts application with a strong artificial intelligence after more than 50 years of the existence of the game. In particular, we combine results from the theory of nimbers with new methods based on Delaunay triangulations and crossing-preserving force-directed algorithms to develop an AI Sprouts player which plays a perfect game on up to 11 spots.

cs.DM↗

arXiv2021

Big Ramsey degrees of 3-uniform hypergraphs are finite

We prove that the universal homogeneous 3-uniform hypergraph has finite big Ramsey degrees. This is the first case where big Ramsey degrees are known to be finite for structures in a non-binary language. Our proof is based on the vector (or product) form of Milliken's Tree Theorem and demonstrates a general method to carry existing results on structures in binary relational languages to higher arities.

math.CO↗

arXiv2021

Big Ramsey degrees and forbidden cycles

Using the Carlson-Simpson theorem, we give a new general condition for a structure in a finite binary relational language to have finite big Ramsey degrees

math.CO↗

arXiv2021

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 in a similar way as Devlin characterised big Ramsey degrees of the generic linear order (the order of rationals).

math.CO↗

arXiv2021

Edge-ordered Ramsey numbers

We introduce and study a variant of Ramsey numbers for edge-ordered graphs, that is, graphs with linearly ordered sets of edges. The edge-ordered Ramsey number $\overline{R}_e(\mathfrak{G})$ of an edge-ordered graph $\mathfrak{G}$ is the minimum positive integer $N$ such that there exists an edge-ordered complete graph $\mathfrak{K}_N$ on $N$ vertices such that every 2-coloring of the edges of $\mathfrak{K}_N$ contains a monochromatic copy of $\mathfrak{G}$ as an edge-ordered subgraph of $\mathfrak{K}_N$. We prove that the edge-ordered Ramsey number $\overline{R}_e(\mathfrak{G})$ is finite for every edge-ordered graph $\mathfrak{G}$ and we obtain better estimates for special classes of edge-ordered graphs. In particular, we prove $\overline{R}_e(\mathfrak{G}) \leq 2^{O(n^3\log{n})}$ for every bipartite edge-ordered graph $\mathfrak{G}$ on $n$ vertices. We also introduce a natural class of edge-orderings, called lexicographic edge-orderings, for which we can prove much better upper bounds on the corresponding edge-ordered Ramsey numbers.

math.CO↗

arXiv2020

Minimal Representations of Order Types by Geometric Graphs

In order to have a compact visualization of the order type of a given point set S, we are interested in geometric graphs on S with few edges that unambiguously display the order type of S. We introduce the concept of exit edges, which prevent the order type from changing under continuous motion of vertices. That is, in the geometric graph on S whose edges are the exit edges, in order to change the order type of S, at least one vertex needs to move across an exit edge. Exit edges have a natural dual characterization, which allows us to efficiently compute them and to bound their number.

math.CO↗

arXiv2020

Almost-equidistant sets

For a positive integer $d$, a set of points in $d$-dimensional Euclidean space is called almost-equidistant if for any three points from the set, some two are at unit distance. Let $f(d)$ denote the largest size of an almost-equidistant set in $d$-space. It is known that $f(2)=7$, $f(3)=10$, and that the extremal almost-equidistant sets are unique. We give independent, computer-assisted proofs of these statements. It is also known that $f(5) \ge 16$. We further show that $12\leq f(4)\leq 13$, $f(5)\leq 20$, $18\leq f(6)\leq 26$, $20\leq f(7)\leq 34$, and $f(9)\geq f(8)\geq 24$. Up to dimension $7$, our work is based on various computer searches, and in dimensions $6$ to $9$, we give constructions based on the known construction for $d=5$. For every dimension $d \ge 3$, we give an example of an almost-equidistant set of $2d+4$ points in the $d$-space and we prove the asymptotic upper bound $f(d) \le O(d^{3/2})$.

math.MG↗

arXiv2020

A superlinear lower bound on the number of 5-holes

Let $P$ be a finite set of points in the plane in general position, that is, no three points of $P$ are on a common line. We say that a set $H$ of five points from $P$ is a $5$-hole in $P$ if $H$ is the vertex set of a convex $5$-gon containing no other points of $P$. For a positive integer $n$, let $h_5(n)$ be the minimum number of 5-holes among all sets of $n$ points in the plane in general position. Despite many efforts in the last 30 years, the best known asymptotic lower and upper bounds for $h_5(n)$ have been of order $Ω(n)$ and $O(n^2)$, respectively. We show that $h_5(n) = Ω(n\log^{4/5}{n})$, obtaining the first superlinear lower bound on $h_5(n)$. The following structural result, which might be of independent interest, is a crucial step in the proof of this lower bound. If a finite set $P$ of points in the plane in general position is partitioned by a line $\ell$ into two subsets, each of size at least 5 and not in convex position, then $\ell$ intersects the convex hull of some 5-hole in $P$. The proof of this result is computer-assisted.

math.CO↗

arXiv2019

Ramsey numbers of ordered graphs

An ordered graph is a pair $\mathcal{G}=(G,\prec)$ where $G$ is a graph and $\prec$ is a total ordering of its vertices. The ordered Ramsey number $\overline{R}(\mathcal{G})$ is the minimum number $N$ such that every ordered complete graph with $N$ vertices and with edges colored by two colors contains a monochromatic copy of $\mathcal{G}$. In contrast with the case of unordered graphs, we show that there are arbitrarily large ordered matchings $\mathcal{M}_n$ on $n$ vertices for which $\overline{R}(\mathcal{M}_n)$ is superpolynomial in $n$. This implies that ordered Ramsey numbers of the same graph can grow superpolynomially in the size of the graph in one ordering and remain linear in another ordering. We also prove that the ordered Ramsey number $\overline{R}(\mathcal{G})$ is polynomial in the number of vertices of $\mathcal{G}$ if the bandwidth of $\mathcal{G}$ is constant or if $\mathcal{G}$ is an ordered graph of constant degeneracy and constant interval chromatic number. The first result gives a positive answer to a question of Conlon, Fox, Lee, and Sudakov. For a few special classes of ordered paths, stars or matchings, we give asymptotically tight bounds on their ordered Ramsey numbers. For so-called monotone cycles we compute their ordered Ramsey numbers exactly. This result implies exact formulas for geometric Ramsey numbers of cycles introduced by Károlyi, Pach, Tóth, and Valtr.

math.CO↗

arXiv2019

Hypergraph based Berge hypergraphs

Fix a hypergraph $\mathcal{F}$. A hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$ is called a {\it Berge copy of $\mathcal{F}$} or {\it Berge-$\mathcal{F}$} if we can choose a subset of each hyperedge of $\mathcal{H}$ to obtain a copy of $\mathcal{F}$. A hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$ is {\it Berge-$\mathcal{F}$-free} if it does not contain a subhypergraph which is Berge copy of $\mathcal{F}$. This is a generalization of the usual, graph based Berge hypergraphs, where $\mathcal{F}$ is a graph. In this paper, we study extremal properties of hypergraph based Berge hypergraphs and generalize several results from the graph based setting. In particular, we show that for any $r$-uniform hypregraph $\mathcal{F}$, the sum of the sizes of the hyperedges of a (not necessarily uniform) Berge-$\mathcal{F}$-free hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$ on $n$ vertices is $o(n^r)$ when all the hyperedges of $\mathcal{H}$ are large enough. We also give a connection between hypergraph based Berge hypergraphs and generalized hypergraph Turán problems.

math.CO↗

arXiv2019

Big Ramsey degrees of 3-uniform hypergraphs

Given a countably infinite hypergraph $\mathcal R$ and a finite hypergraph $\mathcal A$, the big Ramsey degree of $\mathcal A$ in $\mathcal R$ is the least number $L$ such that, for every finite $k$ and every $k$-colouring of the embeddings of $\mathcal A$ to $\mathcal R$, there exists an embedding $f$ from $\mathcal R$ to $\mathcal R$ such that all the embeddings of $\mathcal A$ to the image $f(\mathcal R)$ have at most $L$ different colours. We describe the big Ramsey degrees of the random countably infinite 3-uniform hypergraph, thereby solving a question of Sauer. We also give a new presentation of the results of Devlin and Sauer on, respectively, big Ramsey degrees of the order of the rationals and the countably infinite random graph. Our techniques generalise (in a natural way) to relational structures and give new examples of Ramsey structures (a concept recently introduced by Zucker with applications to topological dynamics).

math.CO↗

arXiv2019

Ramsey numbers and monotone colorings

For positive integers $N$ and $r \geq 2$, an $r$-monotone coloring of $\binom{\{1,\dots,N\}}{r}$ is a 2-coloring by $-1$ and $+1$ that is monotone on the lexicographically ordered sequence of $r$-tuples of every $(r+1)$-tuple from~$\binom{\{1,\dots,N\}}{r+1}$. Let ${\overline{R}_{mon}}(n;r)$ be the minimum $N$ such that every $r$-monotone coloring of $\binom{\{1,\dots,N\}}{r}$ contains a monochromatic copy of $\binom{\{1,\dots,n\}}{r}$. For every $r \geq 3$, it is known that ${\overline{R}_{mon}}(n;r) \leq tow_{r-1}(O(n))$, where $tow_h(x)$ is the tower function of height $h-1$ defined as $tow_1(x)=x$ and $tow_h(x) = 2^{tow_{h-1}(x)}$ for $h \geq 2$. The Erdős--Szekeres Lemma and the Erdős--Szekeres Theorem imply ${\overline{R}_{mon}}(n;2)=(n-1)^2+1$ and ${\overline{R}_{mon}}(n;3)=\binom{2n-4}{n-2}+1$, respectively. It follows from a result of Eliáš and Matoušek that ${\overline{R}_{mon}}(n;4)\geq tow_3(Ω(n))$. We show that ${\overline{R}_{mon}}(n;r)\geq tow_{r-1}(Ω(n))$ for every $r \geq 3$. This, in particular, solves an open problem posed by Eliáš and Matoušek and by Moshkovitz and Shapira. Using two geometric interpretations of monotone colorings, we show connections between estimating ${\overline{R}_{mon}}(n;r)$ and two Ramsey-type problems that have been recently considered by several researchers. Namely, we show connections with higher-order Erdős--Szekeres theorems and with Ramsey-type problems for order-type homogeneous sequences of points. We also prove that the number of $r$-monotone colorings of $\binom{\{1,\dots,N\}}{r}$ is $2^{N^{r-1}/r^{Θ(r)}}$ for $N \geq r \geq 3$, which generalizes the well-known fact that the number of simple arrangements of~$N$ pseudolines is $2^{Θ(N^2)}$.

math.CO↗

arXiv2018

On ordered Ramsey numbers of bounded-degree graphs

An ordered graph is a pair $\mathcal{G}=(G,\prec)$ where $G$ is a graph and $\prec$ is a total ordering of its vertices. The ordered Ramsey number $\overline{R}(\mathcal{G})$ is the minimum number $N$ such that every $2$-coloring of the edges of the ordered complete graph on $N$ vertices contains a monochromatic copy of $\mathcal{G}$. We show that for every integer $d \geq 3$, almost every $d$-regular graph $G$ satisfies $\overline{R}(\mathcal{G}) \geq \frac{n^{3/2-1/d}}{4\log{n}\log{\log{n}}}$ for every ordering $\mathcal{G}$ of $G$. In particular, there are 3-regular graphs $G$ on $n$ vertices for which the numbers $\overline{R}(\mathcal{G})$ are superlinear in $n$, regardless of the ordering $\mathcal{G}$ of $G$. This solves a problem of Conlon, Fox, Lee, and Sudakov. On the other hand, we prove that every graph $G$ on $n$ vertices with maximum degree 2 admits an ordering $\mathcal{G}$ of $G$ such that $\overline{R}(\mathcal{G})$ is linear in $n$. We also show that almost every ordered matching $\mathcal{M}$ with $n$ vertices and with interval chromatic number two satisfies $\overline{R}(\mathcal{M}) \geq cn^2/\log^2{n}$ for some absolute constant $c$.

math.CO↗

arXiv2018

Covering lattice points by subspaces and counting point-hyperplane incidences

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 nearly settles a problem mentioned in the book of Brass, Moser, and Pach. We also find tight bounds for the minimum number of $k$-dimensional affine subspaces needed to cover $Λ\cap K$. We use these new results to improve the best known lower bound for the maximum number of point-hyperplane incidences by Brass and Knauer. For $d \geq 3$ and $\varepsilon \in (0,1)$, we show that there is an integer $r=r(d,\varepsilon)$ such that for all positive integers $n,m$ the following statement is true. There is a set of $n$ points in $\mathbb{R}^d$ and an arrangement of $m$ hyperplanes in $\mathbb{R}^d$ with no $K_{r,r}$ in their incidence graph and with at least $Ω\left((mn)^{1-(2d+3)/((d+2)(d+3)) - \varepsilon}\right)$ incidences if $d$ is odd and $Ω\left((mn)^{1-(2d^2+d-2)/((d+2)(d^2+2d-2)) -\varepsilon}\right)$ incidences if $d$ is even.

math.CO↗

arXiv2017

Induced Ramsey-type results and binary predicates for point sets

Let $k$ and $p$ be positive integers and let $Q$ be a finite point set in general position in the plane. We say that $Q$ is $(k,p)$-Ramsey if there is a finite point set $P$ such that for every $k$-coloring $c$ of $\binom{P}{p}$ there is a subset $Q'$ of $P$ such that $Q'$ and $Q$ have the same order type and $\binom{Q'}{p}$ is monochromatic in $c$. Nešetřil and Valtr proved that for every $k \in \mathbb{N}$, all point sets are $(k,1)$-Ramsey. They also proved that for every $k \ge 2$ and $p \ge 2$, there are point sets that are not $(k,p)$-Ramsey. As our main result, we introduce a new family of $(k,2)$-Ramsey point sets, extending a result of Nešetřil and Valtr. We then use this new result to show that for every $k$ there is a point set $P$ such that no function $Γ$ that maps ordered pairs of distinct points from $P$ to a set of size $k$ can satisfy the following "local consistency" property: if $Γ$ attains the same values on two ordered triples of points from $P$, then these triples have the same orientation. Intuitively, this implies that there cannot be such a function that is defined locally and determines the orientation of point triples.

math.CO↗