Searcharxiv⌕ Search

arXiv subjects

Roman Karasev

Publications and source records attributed to Roman Karasev.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Envy-free division using mapping degree

In this paper we study envy-free division problems. The classical approach to such problems, used by David Gale, reduces to considering continuous maps of a simplex to itself and finding sufficient conditions for this map to hit the center of the simplex. The mere continuity of the map is not sufficient for reaching such a conclusion. Classically, one makes additional assumptions on the behavior of the map on the boundary of the simplex (for example, in the Knaster--Kuratowski--Mazurkiewicz and the Gale theorem). We follow Erel Segal-Halevi, Frédéric Meunier, and Shira Zerbib, and replace the boundary condition by another assumption, which has the meaning in economy as the possibility for a player to prefer an empty part in the segment partition problem. We solve the problem positively when $n$, the number of players that divide the segment, is a prime power, and we provide counterexamples for every $n$ which is not a prime power. We also provide counterexamples relevant to a wider class of fair or envy-free division problems when $n$ is odd and not a prime power. In this arxiv version that appears after the official publication we have corrected the statement and the proof of Lemma 3.4.

math.AT↗

More bisections by hyperplane arrangements

A union of an arrangement of affine hyperplanes $H$ in $R^d$ is the real algebraic variety associated to the principal ideal generated by the polynomial $p_{H}$ given as the product of the degree one polynomials which define the hyperplanes of the arrangement. A finite Borel measure on $R^d$ is bisected by the arrangement of affine hyperplanes $H$ if the measure on the "non-negative side" of the arrangement $\{x\in R^d : p_{H}(x)\ge 0\}$ is the same as the measure on the "non-positive" side $\{x\in R^d : p_{H}(x)\le 0\}$. In 2017 Barba, Pilz \& Schnider considered special cases of the following measure partition hypothesis: For a given collection of $j$ finite Borel measures on $R^d$ there exists a $k$-element affine hyperplane arrangement that bisects each of the measures into equal halves simultaneously. They showed that there are simultaneous bisections in the case when $d=k=2$ and $j=4$. They conjectured that every collection of $j$ measures on $R^d$ can be simultaneously bisected with a $k$-element affine hyperplane arrangement provided that $d\ge \lceil j/k \rceil$. The conjecture was confirmed in the case when $d\ge j/k=2^a$ by Hubard and Karasev in 2018. In this paper we give a different proof of the Hubard and Karasev result using the framework of Blagojević, Frick, Haase \& Ziegler (2016), based on the equivariant relative obstruction theory of tom Dieck, which was developed for handling the Grünbaum--Hadwiger--Ramos hyperplane measure partition problem. Furthermore, this approach allowed us to prove even more, that for every collection of $2^a(2h+1)+\ell$ measures on $R^{2^a+\ell}$, where $1\leq \ell\leq 2^a-1$, there exists a $(2h+1)$-element affine hyperplane arrangement that bisects all of them simultaneously. Our result was extended to the case of spherical arrangements and reproved by alternative methods in a beautiful way by Crabb in 2020.

math.MG↗

Mahler's conjecture for some hyperplane sections

We use symplectic techniques to obtain partial results on Mahler's conjecture about the product of the volume of a convex body and the volume of its polar. We confirm the conjecture for hyperplane sections or projections of $\ell_p$-balls or the Hanner polytopes.

math.MG↗

On the Carathéodory number for strong convexity

We give an improvement of the Carathéodory theorem for strong convexity (ball convexity) in $\mathbb R^n$, reducing the Carathéodory number to $n$ in several cases; and show that the Carathéodory number cannot be smaller than $n$ for an arbitrary gauge body $K$. We also give an improved topological criterion for one convex body to be a Minkowski summand of another.

math.MG↗

Bang's problem and symplectic invariants

We consider the Tarski--Bang problem about covering of convex bodies by planks. The results of this kind give a lower bound on the sum of widths of planks (regions between a pair of parallel hyperplanes) covering a given convex body. Previously we have applied some notions of symplectic geometry to study convex bodies, and here we show that the symplectic techniques may be useful in this problem as well. We are able to handle some particular cases with the symplectic techniques, and show that the general cases would follow from a certain ``subadditivity conjecture'' in symplectic geometry, motivated by the results of K.~Ball. We also prove several related results by more elementary methods.

math.MG↗

Gromov's waist of non-radial Gaussian measures and radial non-Gaussian measures

We study the Gromov waist in the sense of $t$-neighborhoods for measures in the Euclidean space, motivated by the famous theorem of Gromov about the waist of radially symmetric Gaussian measures. In particular, it turns our possible to extend Gromov's original result to the case of not necessarily radially symmetric Gaussian measure. We also provide examples of measures having no $t$-neighborhood waist property, including a rather wide class of compactly supported radially symmetric measures and their maps into the Euclidean space of dimension at least 2. We use a simpler form of Gromov's pancake argument to produce some estimates of $t$-neighborhoods of (weighted) volume-critical submanifolds in the spirit of the waist theorems, including neighborhoods of algebraic manifolds in the complex projective space. For reader's convenience, in one appendix of this paper we provide a more detailed explanation of the Caffarelli theorem that we use to handle not necessarily radially symmetric Gaussian measures. In the other appendix, we provide a comparison of different variations of Gromov's pancake method.

math.MG↗

Viterbo's conjecture for certain Hamiltonians in classical mechanics

We study some particular cases of Viterbo's conjecture relating volumes of convex bodies and actions of closed characteristics on their boundaries, focusing on the case of a Hamiltonian of classical mechanical type, splitting into summands depending on the coordinates and the momentum separately. We manage to establish the conjecture for sublevel sets of convex $2$-homogeneous Hamiltonians of this kind in several particular cases. We also discuss open cases of this conjecture.

math.MG↗

Hedetniemi's conjecture from the topological viewpoint

This paper is devoted to studying a topological version of the famous Hedetniemi conjecture which says: The $\mathbb Z/2$-index of the Cartesian product of two $\mathbb Z/2$-spaces is equal to the minimum of their $\mathbb Z/2$-indexes. We fully confirm the version of this conjecture for the homological index via establishing a stronger formula for the homological index of the join of $\mathbb Z/2$-spaces. Moreover, we confirm the original conjecture for the case when one of the factors is an $n$-sphere. Analogous results for $\mathbb Z/p$-spaces are presented as well. In addition, we answer a question about computing the index of some non-trivial products, raised by Marcin Wrochna. Finally, some new topological lower bounds for the chromatic number of the Categorical product of (hyper-)graphs are presented.

math.CO↗

Huang's theorem and the exterior algebra

In this note we give a version of Hao Huang's proof of the sensitivity conjecture, shedding some light on the origin of the magical matrix $A$ in that proof. For the history of the subject and the importance of this conjecture to the study of boolean functions, we refer to the original paper. Here we only state the main result: Consider the boolean cube $Q_n=\{0,1\}^n$ as a graph, whose edges connect pairs of vertices differing in one coordinate. Then any its induced subgraph on greater than $2^{n-1}$ (the half) vertices has degree of some vertex at least $\sqrt{n}$.

math.CO↗

Orthogonal shadows and index of Grassmann manifolds

In this paper we study the $\Z/2$ action on real Grassmann manifolds $G_{n}(\R^{2n})$ and $\widetilde{G}_{n}(\R^{2n})$ given by taking (appropriately oriented) orthogonal complement. We completely evaluate the related $\Z/2$ Fadell--Husseini index utilizing a novel computation of the Stiefel--Whitney classes of the wreath product of a vector bundle. These results are used to establish the following geometric result about the orthogonal shadows of a convex body: For $n=2^a (2 b+1)$, $k=2^{a+1}-1$, $C$ a convex body in $\R^{2n}$, and $k$ real valued functions $α_1,\ldots,α_k$ continuous on convex bodies in $\R^{2n}$ with respect to the Hausdorff metric, there exists a subspace $V\subseteq\R^{2n}$ such that projections of $C$ to $V$ and its orthogonal complement $V^{\perp}$ have the same value with respect to each function $α_i$, which is $α_i (p_V(C))=α_i (p_{V^\perp} (C))$ for all $1\leq i\leq k$.

math.AT↗

A center transversal theorem for an improved Rado depth

A celebrated result of Dol'nikov, and of Živaljević and Vrećica, asserts that for every collection of $m$ measures $μ_1,\dots,μ_m$ on the Euclidean space $\mathbb R^{n + m - 1}$ there exists a projection onto an $n$-dimensional vector subspace $Γ$ with a point in it at depth at least $\tfrac{1}{n + 1}$ with respect to each associated $n$-dimensional marginal measure $Γ_*μ_1,\dots,Γ_*μ_m$. In this paper we consider a natural extension of this result and ask for a minimal dimension of a Euclidean space in which one can require that for any collection of $m$ measures there exists a vector subspace $Γ$ with a point in it at depth slightly greater than $\tfrac{1}{n + 1}$ with respect to each $n$-dimensional marginal measure. In particular, we prove that if the required depth is $\tfrac{1}{n + 1} + \tfrac{1}{3(n + 1)^3}$ then the increase in the dimension of the ambient space is a linear function in both $m$ and $n$.

math.MG↗

Waist of balls in hyperbolic and spherical spaces

In this paper we find a tight estimate for Gromov's waist of the balls in spaces of constant curvature, deduce the estimates for the balls in Riemannian manifolds with upper bounds on the curvature ($\mathrm{CAT}(κ)$-spaces), and establish similar result for normed spaces.

math.MG↗

Estimating symplectic capacities from lengths of closed curves on the unit spheres

We improve the estimates for the Ekeland--Hofer--Zehnder capacity of convex bodies by Gluskin and Ostrover. In the course of our argument we show that a closed characteristic of minimal action on the boundary of a centrally symmetric convex body in $\mathbb R^{2n}$ must itself be centrally symmetric, with generalizations to some other types of symmetry.

math.MG↗

Lower and upper bounds for the waists of different spaces

We prove several new results around Gromov's waist theorem. We give a simple proof of Vaaler's theorem on sections of the unit cube using the Borsuk--Ulam--Crofton technique. We consider waists of real and complex projective spaces, flat tori, convex bodies in Euclidean space. We establish waist-type results in terms of the Hausdorff measure.

math.DG↗

Convex Equipartitions: The Spicy Chicken Theorem

We show that, for any prime power n and any convex body K (i.e., a compact convex set with interior) in Rd, there exists a partition of K into n convex sets with equal volumes and equal surface areas. Similar results regarding equipartitions with respect to continuous functionals and absolutely continuous measures on convex bodies are also proven. These include a generalization of the ham-sandwich theorem to arbitrary number of convex pieces confirming a conjecture of Kaneko and Kano, a similar generalization of perfect partitions of a cake and its icing, and a generalization of the Gromov-Borsuk-Ulam theorem for convex sets in the model spaces of constant curvature. Most of the results in this paper appear in arxiv:1011.4762 and in arxiv:1010.4611. Since the main results and techniques there are essentially the same, we have merged the papers for journal publication. In this version we also provide a technical alternative to a part of the proof of the main topological result that avoids the use of compactly supported homology.

math.MG↗

Optimality of codes with respect to error probability in Gaussian noise

We consider geometrical optimization problems related to optimizing the error probability in the presence of a Gaussian noise. One famous questions in the field is the "weak simplex conjecture". We discuss possible approaches to it, and state related conjectures about the Gaussian measure, in particular, the conjecture about minimizing of the Gaussian measure of a simplex. We also consider antipodal codes, apply the Šidák inequality and establish some theoretical and some numerical results about their optimality.

math.MG↗