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Michał Lasoń

Publications and source records attributed to Michał Lasoń.

34 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
arXiv2014

Triangle-free intersection graphs of line segments with large chromatic number

In the 1970s, Erdos asked whether the chromatic number of intersection graphs of line segments in the plane is bounded by a function of their clique number. We show the answer is no. Specifically, for each positive integer $k$, we construct a triangle-free family of line segments in the plane with chromatic number greater than $k$. Our construction disproves a conjecture of Scott that graphs excluding induced subdivisions of any fixed graph have chromatic number bounded by a function of their clique number.

math.CO↗
arXiv2014

Splitting necklaces and measurable colorings of the real line

A (continuous) necklace is simply an interval of the real line colored measurably with some number of colors. A well-known application of the Borsuk-Ulam theorem asserts that every $k$-colored necklace can be fairly split by at most $k$ cuts (from the resulting pieces one can form two collections, each capturing the same measure of every color). Here we prove that for every $k\geq 1$ there is a measurable $(k+3)$-coloring of the real line such that no interval can be fairly split using at most $k$ cuts. In particular, there is a measurable $4$-coloring of the real line in which no two adjacent intervals have the same measure of every color. An analogous problem for the integers was posed by Erdős in 1961 and solved in the affirmative in 1991 by Keränen. Curiously, in the discrete case the desired coloring also uses four colors.

math.CO↗
arXiv2014

Equivalent condition for approximately Cohen-Macaulay complexes

We give a necessary and sufficient condition for a simplicial complex to be approximately Cohen-Macaulay. Namely it is approximately Cohen-Macaulay if and only if the ideal associated to its Alexander dual is componentwise linear and generated in two consecutive degrees. This completes the result of Herzog and Hibi who proved that a simplicial complex is sequentially Cohen-Macaulay if and only if the ideal associated to its Alexander dual is componentwise linear.

math.AC↗
arXiv2014

List coloring of matroids and base exchange properties

A coloring of a matroid is an assignment of colors to the elements of its ground set. We restrict to proper colorings - those for which elements of the same color form an independent set. Seymour proved that a $k$-colorable matroid is also colorable from any lists of size $k$. We generalize this theorem to the case when lists have still fixed sizes, but not necessarily equal. For any fixed size of lists assignment $\ell$, we prove that, if a matroid is colorable from a particular lists of size $\ell$, then it is colorable from any lists of size $\ell$. This gives an explicit necessary and sufficient condition for a matroid to be list colorable from any lists of a fixed size. As an application, we show how to use our condition to derive several base exchange properties.

math.CO↗
arXiv2014

Obstacles for splitting multidimensional necklaces

The well-known "necklace splitting theorem" of Alon asserts that every $k$-colored necklace can be fairly split into $q$ parts using at most $t$ cuts, provided $k(q-1)\leq t$. In a joint paper with Alon et al. we studied a kind of opposite question. Namely, for which values of $k$ and $t$ there is a measurable $k$-coloring of the real line such that no interval has a fair splitting into $2$ parts with at most $t$ cuts? We proved that $k>t+2$ is a sufficient condition (while $k>t$ is necessary). We generalize this result to Euclidean spaces of arbitrary dimension $d$, and to arbitrary number of parts $q$. We prove that if $k(q-1)>t+d+q-1$, then there is a measurable $k$-coloring of $\mathbb{R}^d$ such that no axis-aligned cube has a fair $q$-splitting using at most $t$ axis-aligned hyperplane cuts. Our bound is of the same order as a necessary condition $k(q-1)>t$ implied by a theorem of Alon. Moreover for $d=1,q=2$ we get exactly the result of of Alon et al. Additionally, we prove that if a stronger inequality $k(q-1)>dt+d+q-1$ is satisfied, then there is a measurable $k$-coloring of $\mathbb{R}^d$ with no axis-aligned cube having a fair $q$-splitting using at most $t$ arbitrary hyperplane cuts. The proofs are based on the topological Baire category theorem and use algebraic independence over suitably chosen fields.

math.CO↗
arXiv2014

The set of fixed points of a unipotent group

Let $K$ be an algebraically closed field. Let $G$ be a non-trivial connected unipotent group, which acts effectively on an affine variety $X.$ Then every non-empty component $R$ of the set of fixed points of $G$ is a $K$-uniruled variety, i.e, there exists an affine cylinder $W\times K$ and a dominant, generically-finite polynomial mapping $ϕ:W\times K\rightarrow R.$ We show also that if an arbitrary infinite algebraic group $G$ acts effectively on $K^n$ and the set of fixed points contains a hypersurface $H$, then this hypersurface is $K$-uniruled.

math.AG↗
arXiv2014

Coloring intersection graphs of arc-connected sets in the plane

A family of sets in the plane is simple if the intersection of its any subfamily is arc-connected, and it is pierced by a line $L$ if the intersection of its any member with $L$ is a nonempty segment. It is proved that the intersection graphs of simple families of compact arc-connected sets in the plane pierced by a common line have chromatic number bounded by a function of their clique number.

math.CO↗
arXiv2014

An extremal problem on crossing vectors

For positive integers $w$ and $k$, two vectors $A$ and $B$ from $\mathbb{Z}^w$ are called $k$-crossing if there are two coordinates $i$ and $j$ such that $A[i]-B[i]\geq k$ and $B[j]-A[j]\geq k$. What is the maximum size of a family of pairwise $1$-crossing and pairwise non-$k$-crossing vectors in $\mathbb{Z}^w$? We state a conjecture that the answer is $k^{w-1}$. We prove the conjecture for $w\leq 3$ and provide weaker upper bounds for $w\geq 4$. Also, for all $k$ and $w$, we construct several quite different examples of families of desired size $k^{w-1}$. This research is motivated by a natural question concerning the width of the lattice of maximum antichains of a partially ordered set.

math.CO↗
arXiv2014

Non-normal very ample polytopes - constructions and examples

We present a method of constructing non-normal very ample polytopes as a segmental fibration of unimodular graph polytopes. In many cases we explicitly compute their invariants - Hilbert function, Ehrhart polynomial, gap vector. In particular, we answer several questions posed by Beck, Cox, Delgado, Gubeladze, Haase, Hibi, Higashitani and Maclagan.

math.CO↗
arXiv2014

On the toric ideal of a matroid

Describing minimal generating set of a toric ideal is a well-studied and difficult problem. In 1980 White conjectured that the toric ideal associated to a matroid is equal to the ideal generated by quadratic binomials corresponding to symmetric exchanges. We prove White's conjecture up to saturation, that is that the saturations of both ideals are equal. In the language of algebraic geometry this means that both ideals define the same projective scheme. Additionally we prove the full conjecture for strongly base orderable matroids.

math.CO↗
arXiv2013

A generalization of Combinatorial Nullstellensatz

In this note we give an extended version of Combinatorial Nullstellensatz, with weaker assumption on nonvanishing monomial. We also present an application of our result in a situation where the original theorem does not seem to work.

math.CO↗
arXiv2013

f-vectors implying vertex decomposability

We prove that if a pure simplicial complex of dimension d with n facets has the least possible number of (d-1)-dimensional faces among all complexes with n faces of dimension d, then it is vertex decomposable. This answers a question of J. Herzog and T. Hibi. In fact we prove a generalization of their theorem using combinatorial methods.

math.CO↗
arXiv2013

Indicated coloring of matroids

A coloring of a matroid is proper if elements of the same color form an independent set. For a loopless matroid M, its chromatic number χ(M) is the minimum number of colors that suffices to color properly the ground set E of M. In this note we study a game-theoretic variant of this parameter proposed by Grytczuk. Suppose that in each round of the game Alice indicates an uncolored yet element e of E, then Bob colors it using a color from a fixed set of colors C. The rule Bob has to obey is that it is a proper coloring. The game ends if the whole matroid has been colored or if Bob can not color e using any color of C. Alice wins in the first case, while Bob in the second. The minimum size of the set of colors C for which Alice has a winning strategy is called the indicated chromatic number of M, denoted by χ_i(M). We prove that χ_i(M)=χ(M).

math.CO↗
arXiv2013

Coloring Hypergraphs Induced by Dynamic Point Sets and Bottomless Rectangles

We consider a coloring problem on dynamic, one-dimensional point sets: points appearing and disappearing on a line at given times. We wish to color them with k colors so that at any time, any sequence of p(k) consecutive points, for some function p, contains at least one point of each color. We prove that no such function p(k) exists in general. However, in the restricted case in which points appear gradually, but never disappear, we give a coloring algorithm guaranteeing the property at any time with p(k)=3k-2. This can be interpreted as coloring point sets in R^2 with k colors such that any bottomless rectangle containing at least 3k-2 points contains at least one point of each color. Here a bottomless rectangle is an axis-aligned rectangle whose bottom edge is below the lowest point of the set. For this problem, we also prove a lower bound p(k)>ck, where c>1.67. Hence for every k there exists a point set, every k-coloring of which is such that there exists a bottomless rectangle containing ck points and missing at least one of the k colors. Chen et al. (2009) proved that no such function $p(k)$ exists in the case of general axis-aligned rectangles. Our result also complements recent results from Keszegh and Palvolgyi on cover-decomposability of octants (2011, 2012).

cs.CG↗
arXiv2013

On-line list coloring of matroids

A coloring of a matroid is proper if elements of the same color form an independent set. A theorem of Seymour asserts that a k-colorable matroid is also colorable from any lists of size k. In this note we generalize this theorem to the on-line setting. We prove that a coloring of a matroid from lists of size k is possible even if appearances of colors in the lists are recovered color by color by an adversary, while our job is to assign a color immediately after it is recovered. We also prove a more general weighted version of our result with lists of varying sizes. In consequence we get a simple necessary and sufficient condition for matroid list colorability in general case. The main tool we use is the multiple basis exchange property, which we give a simple proof.

math.CO↗