Covering Lattice Points by Subspaces and Counting Point-Hyperplane Incidences

Let d and k be integers with 1 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 the intersection of Lambda with 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 > =3 and epsilon in (0,1), we show that there is an integer r=r(d,epsilon) such that for all positive integers n, m the following statement is true. There is a set of n points in R^d and an arrangement of m hyperplanes in R^d with no K_(r,r) in their incidence graph and with at least Omega((mn)^(1-(2d+3)/((d+2)(d+3)) - epsilon)) incidences if d is odd and Omega((mn)^(1-(2d^2+d-2)/((d+2)(d^2+2d-2)) - epsilon)) incidences if d is even

A generalization of Voronoi's reduction theory and its application

We consider Voronoi's reduction theory of positive definite quadratic forms which is based on Delone subdivision. We extend it to forms and Delone subdivisions having a prescribed symmetry group. Even more general, the theory is developed for forms which are restricted to a linear subspace in the space of quadratic forms. We apply the new theory to complete the classification of totally real thin algebraic number fields which was recently initiated by Bayer-Fluckiger and Nebe. Moreover, we apply it to construct new best known sphere coverings in dimensions 9,..., 15.Comment: 31 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables, (v4) minor changes, to appear in Duke Math.

The logic of causally closed spacetime subsets

The causal structure of space-time offers a natural notion of an opposite or orthogonal in the logical sense, where the opposite of a set is formed by all points non time-like related with it. We show that for a general space-time the algebra of subsets that arises from this negation operation is a complete orthomodular lattice, and thus has several of the properties characterizing the algebra physical propositions in quantum mechanics. We think this fact could be used to investigate causal structure in an algebraic context. As a first step in this direction we show that the causal lattice is in addition atomic, find its atoms, and give necesary and sufficient conditions for ireducibility.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figure