26 research outputs found
Multitriangulations, pseudotriangulations and primitive sorting networks
We study the set of all pseudoline arrangements with contact points which
cover a given support. We define a natural notion of flip between these
arrangements and study the graph of these flips. In particular, we provide an
enumeration algorithm for arrangements with a given support, based on the
properties of certain greedy pseudoline arrangements and on their connection
with sorting networks. Both the running time per arrangement and the working
space of our algorithm are polynomial.
As the motivation for this work, we provide in this paper a new
interpretation of both pseudotriangulations and multitriangulations in terms of
pseudoline arrangements on specific supports. This interpretation explains
their common properties and leads to a natural definition of
multipseudotriangulations, which generalizes both. We study elementary
properties of multipseudotriangulations and compare them to iterations of
pseudotriangulations.Comment: 60 pages, 40 figures; minor corrections and improvements of
presentatio
Drawing Arrangement Graphs In Small Grids, Or How To Play Planarity
We describe a linear-time algorithm that finds a planar drawing of every
graph of a simple line or pseudoline arrangement within a grid of area
O(n^{7/6}). No known input causes our algorithm to use area
\Omega(n^{1+\epsilon}) for any \epsilon>0; finding such an input would
represent significant progress on the famous k-set problem from discrete
geometry. Drawing line arrangement graphs is the main task in the Planarity
puzzle.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures. To appear at 21st Int. Symp. Graph Drawing,
Bordeaux, 201
Upper and Lower Bounds on Long Dual-Paths in Line Arrangements
Given a line arrangement with lines, we show that there exists a
path of length in the dual graph of formed by its
faces. This bound is tight up to lower order terms. For the bicolored version,
we describe an example of a line arrangement with blue and red lines
with no alternating path longer than . Further, we show that any line
arrangement with lines has a coloring such that it has an alternating path
of length . Our results also hold for pseudoline
arrangements.Comment: 19 page
Flip Graph Connectivity for Arrangements of Pseudolines and Pseudocircles
Flip graphs of combinatorial and geometric objects are at the heart of many
deep structural insights and connections between different branches of discrete
mathematics and computer science. They also provide a natural framework for the
study of reconfiguration problems. We study flip graphs of arrangements of
pseudolines and of arrangements of pseudocircles, which are combinatorial
generalizations of lines and circles, respectively. In both cases we consider
triangle flips as local transformation and prove conjectures regarding their
connectivity.
In the case of pseudolines we show that the connectivity of the flip
graph equals its minimum degree, which is exactly . For the proof we
introduce the class of shellable line arrangements, which serve as reference
objects for the construction of disjoint paths. In fact, shellable arrangements
are elements of a flip graph of line arrangements which are vertices of a
polytope (Felsner and Ziegler; DM 241 (2001), 301--312). This polytope forms a
cluster of good connectivity in the flip graph of pseudolines. In the case of
pseudocircles we show that triangle flips induce a connected flip graph on
\emph{intersecting} arrangements and also on cylindrical intersecting
arrangements. The result for cylindrical arrangements is used in the proof for
intersecting arrangements. We also show that in both settings the diameter of
the flip graph is in . Our constructions make essential use of
variants of the sweeping lemma for pseudocircle arrangements (Snoeyink and
Hershberger; Proc.\ SoCG 1989: 354--363). We finally study cylindrical
arrangements in their own right and provide new combinatorial characterizations
of this class
The brick polytope of a sorting network
The associahedron is a polytope whose graph is the graph of flips on
triangulations of a convex polygon. Pseudotriangulations and
multitriangulations generalize triangulations in two different ways, which have
been unified by Pilaud and Pocchiola in their study of flip graphs on
pseudoline arrangements with contacts supported by a given sorting network.
In this paper, we construct the brick polytope of a sorting network, obtained
as the convex hull of the brick vectors associated to each pseudoline
arrangement supported by the network. We combinatorially characterize the
vertices of this polytope, describe its faces, and decompose it as a Minkowski
sum of matroid polytopes.
Our brick polytopes include Hohlweg and Lange's many realizations of the
associahedron, which arise as brick polytopes for certain well-chosen sorting
networks. We furthermore discuss the brick polytopes of sorting networks
supporting pseudoline arrangements which correspond to multitriangulations of
convex polygons: our polytopes only realize subgraphs of the flip graphs on
multitriangulations and they cannot appear as projections of a hypothetical
multiassociahedron.Comment: 36 pages, 25 figures; Version 2 refers to the recent generalization
of our results to spherical subword complexes on finite Coxeter groups
(http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.3349
Combinatorial geometry of neural codes, neural data analysis, and neural networks
This dissertation explores applications of discrete geometry in mathematical
neuroscience. We begin with convex neural codes, which model the activity of
hippocampal place cells and other neurons with convex receptive fields. In
Chapter 4, we introduce order-forcing, a tool for constraining convex
realizations of codes, and use it to construct new examples of non-convex codes
with no local obstructions. In Chapter 5, we relate oriented matroids to convex
neural codes, showing that a code has a realization with convex polytopes iff
it is the image of a representable oriented matroid under a neural code
morphism. We also show that determining whether a code is convex is at least as
difficult as determining whether an oriented matroid is representable, implying
that the problem of determining whether a code is convex is NP-hard. Next, we
turn to the problem of the underlying rank of a matrix. This problem is
motivated by the problem of determining the dimensionality of (neural) data
which has been corrupted by an unknown monotone transformation. In Chapter 6,
we introduce two tools for computing underlying rank, the minimal nodes and the
Radon rank. We apply these to analyze calcium imaging data from a larval
zebrafish. In Chapter 7, we explore the underlying rank in more detail,
establish connections to oriented matroid theory, and show that computing
underlying rank is also NP-hard. Finally, we study the dynamics of
threshold-linear networks (TLNs), a simple model of the activity of neural
circuits. In Chapter 9, we describe the nullcline arrangement of a threshold
linear network, and show that a subset of its chambers are an attracting set.
In Chapter 10, we focus on combinatorial threshold linear networks (CTLNs),
which are TLNs defined from a directed graph. We prove that if the graph of a
CTLN is a directed acyclic graph, then all trajectories of the CTLN approach a
fixed point.Comment: 193 pages, 69 figure
Associahedra via spines
An associahedron is a polytope whose vertices correspond to triangulations of
a convex polygon and whose edges correspond to flips between them. Using
labeled polygons, C. Hohlweg and C. Lange constructed various realizations of
the associahedron with relevant properties related to the symmetric group and
the classical permutahedron. We introduce the spine of a triangulation as its
dual tree together with a labeling and an orientation. This notion extends the
classical understanding of the associahedron via binary trees, introduces a new
perspective on C. Hohlweg and C. Lange's construction closer to J.-L. Loday's
original approach, and sheds light upon the combinatorial and geometric
properties of the resulting realizations of the associahedron. It also leads to
noteworthy proofs which shorten and simplify previous approaches.Comment: 27 pages, 11 figures. Version 5: minor correction
Brick polytopes of spherical subword complexes and generalized associahedra
International audienceWe generalize the brick polytope of V. Pilaud and F. Santos to spherical subword complexes for finite Coxeter groups. This construction provides polytopal realizations for a certain class of subword complexes containing all cluster complexes of finite types. For the latter, the brick polytopes turn out to coincide with the known realizations of generalized associahedra, thus opening new perspectives on these constructions. This new approach yields in particular the vertex description of generalized associahedra, a Minkowski sum decomposition into Coxeter matroid polytopes, and a combinatorial description of the exchange matrix of any cluster in a finite type cluster algebra