Colourful Simplicial Depth

Inspired by Barany's colourful Caratheodory theorem, we introduce a colourful generalization of Liu's simplicial depth. We prove a parity property and conjecture that the minimum colourful simplicial depth of any core point in any d-dimensional configuration is d^2+1 and that the maximum is d^(d+1)+1. We exhibit configurations attaining each of these depths and apply our results to the problem of bounding monochrome (non-colourful) simplicial depth.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figues. Minor polishin

The colourful simplicial depth conjecture

Given $d+1$ sets of points, or colours, $S_1,\ldots,S_{d+1}$ in $\mathbb R^d$, a colourful simplex is a set $T\subseteq\bigcup_{i=1}^{d+1}S_i$ such that $|T\cap S_i|\leq 1$, for all $i\in\{1,\ldots,d+1\}$. The colourful Carath\'eodory theorem states that, if $\mathbf 0$ is in the convex hull of each $S_i$, then there exists a colourful simplex $T$ containing $\mathbf 0$ in its convex hull. Deza, Huang, Stephen, and Terlaky (Colourful simplicial depth, Discrete Comput. Geom., 35, 597--604 (2006)) conjectured that, when $|S_i|=d+1$ for all $i\in\{1,\ldots,d+1\}$, there are always at least $d^2+1$ colourful simplices containing $\mathbf 0$ in their convex hulls. We prove this conjecture via a combinatorial approach

A Note on Lower Bounds for Colourful Simplicial Depth

The colourful simplicial depth problem in dimension d is to find a configuration of (d+1) sets of (d+1) points such that the origin is contained in the convex hull of each set, or colour, but contained in a minimal number of colourful simplices generated by taking one point from each set. A construction attaining d2 + 1 simplices is known, and is conjectured to be minimal. This has been confirmed up to d = 3, however the best known lower bound for d ≥ 4 is ⌈(d+1)2 /2 ⌉. In this note, we use a branching strategy to improve the lower bound in dimension 4 from 13 to 14

Notes about the Caratheodory number

In this paper we give sufficient conditions for a compactum in $\mathbb R^n$ to have Carath\'{e}odory number less than $n+1$, generalizing an old result of Fenchel. Then we prove the corresponding versions of the colorful Carath\'{e}odory theorem and give a Tverberg type theorem for families of convex compacta

Discrete Geometry

A number of important recent developments in various branches of discrete geometry were presented at the workshop. The presentations illustrated both the diversity of the area and its strong connections to other fields of mathematics such as topology, combinatorics or algebraic geometry. The open questions abound and many of the results presented were obtained by young researchers, confirming the great vitality of discrete geometry

IST Austria Thesis

This thesis considers two examples of reconfiguration problems: flipping edges in edge-labelled triangulations of planar point sets and swapping labelled tokens placed on vertices of a graph. In both cases the studied structures – all the triangulations of a given point set or all token placements on a given graph – can be thought of as vertices of the so-called reconfiguration graph, in which two vertices are adjacent if the corresponding structures differ by a single elementary operation – by a flip of a diagonal in a triangulation or by a swap of tokens on adjacent vertices, respectively. We study the reconfiguration of one instance of a structure into another via (shortest) paths in the reconfiguration graph. For triangulations of point sets in which each edge has a unique label and a flip transfers the label from the removed edge to the new edge, we prove a polynomial-time testable condition, called the Orbit Theorem, that characterizes when two triangulations of the same point set lie in the same connected component of the reconfiguration graph. The condition was first conjectured by Bose, Lubiw, Pathak and Verdonschot. We additionally provide a polynomial time algorithm that computes a reconfiguring flip sequence, if it exists. Our proof of the Orbit Theorem uses topological properties of a certain high-dimensional cell complex that has the usual reconfiguration graph as its 1-skeleton. In the context of token swapping on a tree graph, we make partial progress on the problem of finding shortest reconfiguration sequences. We disprove the so-called Happy Leaf Conjecture and demonstrate the importance of swapping tokens that are already placed at the correct vertices. We also prove that a generalization of the problem to weighted coloured token swapping is NP-hard on trees but solvable in polynomial time on paths and stars

Combinatorics

Combinatorics is a fundamental mathematical discipline that focuses on the study of discrete objects and their properties. The present workshop featured research in such diverse areas as Extremal, Probabilistic and Algebraic Combinatorics, Graph Theory, Discrete Geometry, Combinatorial Optimization, Theory of Computation and Statistical Mechanics. It provided current accounts of exciting developments and challenges in these fields and a stimulating venue for a variety of fruitful interactions. This is a report on the meeting, containing extended abstracts of the presentations and a summary of the problem session