Long alternating paths in bicolored point sets

AbstractGiven n red and n blue points in convex position in the plane, we show that there exists a noncrossing alternating path of length n+cn/logn. We disprove a conjecture of Erdős by constructing an example without any such path of length greater than 4/3n+c′n

Upper bounds for the necklace folding problems

A necklace can be considered as a cyclic list of n red and n blue beads in an arbitrary order. In the necklace folding problem the goal is to find a large crossing-free matching of pairs of beads of different colors in such a way that there exists a “folding” of the necklace, that is a partition into two contiguous arcs, which splits the beads of any matching edge into different arcs. We give counterexamples for some conjectures about the necklace folding problem, also known as the separated matching problem. The main conjecture (given independently by three sets of authors) states that [Formula presented], where μ is the ratio of the maximum number of matched beads to the total number of beads. We refute this conjecture by giving a construction which proves that μ≤2−2<0.5858≪0.66. Our construction also applies to the homogeneous model when we match beads of the same color. Moreover, we also consider the problem where the two color classes do not necessarily have the same size. © 2022 Elsevier Inc

Cell-paths in mono- and bichromatic line arrangements in the plane

We show that in every arrangement of n red and blue lines | in general position and not all of the same color | there is a path through a linear number of cells where red and blue lines are crossed alternatingly (and no cell is revisited). When all lines have the same color, and hence the preceding alternating constraint is dropped, we prove that the dual graph of the arrangement always contains a path of length (n2).Peer ReviewedPostprint (author’s final draft

Diszkrét és kombinatórikus geometriai kutatások = Topics in discrete and combinatorial geometry

A most lezárult OTKA grant, 8 résztvevő diszkrét geometriai kutatását támogatta. Itt a témák ilusztrálására kiemelünk néhányat az elért 72 publikációból. 1. Jelentős eredmények születtek (8 cikk) gráfok síkba rajzolhatóságáról, például az úgynevezett metszési számról. 2. Többek között sikerült igazolni Katchalski és Lewis 20 éves sejtését, mely szerint diszjunkt egységkörökből álló rendszereknél ha bármely három körnek van közös metsző egyenese akkor van olyan egyenes, amely legfeljebb 2 kör kivételével valamennyit metsz. 3. Littlewood (1964) problémájaként ismert volt az a kérdés, hogy hány henger érintheti kölcsönösen egymást? Viszonylag alacsony felső korlátot találtunk és egy régóta ismert elhelyzés valótlanságát igazoltuk. 4. Többszörös fedések egyszerű fedésekre való szétbontását vizsgáltuk és értünk el lényeges előrelépést. 5. A Borsuk-féle darabolási problémanak azt a variánsát vizsgáltuk, amelyben a darabolást u. n. hengeres darabolásra korlátozták. 6. Bebizonyítottuk, hogy ''nem nagyon elnyúlt'' ellipszisek esetében a sík legritkább fedésének meghatározásánál el lehet tekinteni az u.n. nem-keresztezési feltételtől. 7. A sejtetthez nagyon közeli korlátot találtunk arra a problémára, hogy az n-dimenziós térben legfeljebb hány homotetikus konvex test helyezhető el úgy, hogy bármely kettő érintse egymást. | Discrete geometry in Hungary flourished since the sixties as a result of the work of László Fejes Tóth. The supported research of 8 participant also belongs to this area. Here we illustrate the achieved 72 publications by mentioning a few results. 1. Important theorems (8 papers) were proved concerning graph drawing. 2. Among others, a 20 year old problem of Katchalsky was proved, stating that in a packing of congruent circles, if any three has a common transversal, then there is a line, which avoids at most two of the circles. 3. Concerning a conjecture of Littlewood we found a small upper bound for the number of infinite cylinders which mutually touch each other. 4. We studied decomposability of multiple coverings into single coverings. 5. We studied that variant of the famous Borsuk problem where the partitions are restricted to cylindrical partitions. 6. We proved that in case of ellipses which are not ''too long'' at determining the thinnest covering one can omit the usually needed noncrossing condition. 7. A bound close to the conjectured bound was found concerning the number of n-dimensional homothetic convex solids which mutually touch each other

K1,3K_{1,3}-covering red and blue points in the plane

We say that a finite set of red and blue points in the plane in general position can be $K_{1,3}$-covered if the set can be partitioned into subsets of size $4$, with $3$ points of one color and $1$ point of the other color, in such a way that, if at each subset the fourth point is connected by straight-line segments to the same-colored points, then the resulting set of all segments has no crossings. We consider the following problem: Given a set $R$ of $r$ red points and a set $B$ of $b$ blue points in the plane in general position, how many points of $R\cup B$ can be $K_{1,3}$-covered? and we prove the following results: (1) If $r=3g+h$ and $b=3h+g$, for some non-negative integers $g$ and $h$, then there are point sets $R\cup B$, like $\{1,3\}$-equitable sets (i.e., $r=3b$ or $b=3r$) and linearly separable sets, that can be $K_{1,3}$-covered. (2) If $r=3g+h$, $b=3h+g$ and the points in $R\cup B$ are in convex position, then at least $r+b-4$ points can be $K_{1,3}$-covered, and this bound is tight. (3) There are arbitrarily large point sets $R\cup B$ in general position, with $r=b+1$, such that at most $r+b-5$ points can be $K_{1,3}$-covered. (4) If $b\le r\le 3b$, then at least $\frac{8}{9}(r+b-8)$ points of $R\cup B$ can be $K_{1,3}$-covered. For $r>3b$, there are too many red points and at least $r-3b$ of them will remain uncovered in any $K_{1,3}$-covering. Furthermore, in all the cases we provide efficient algorithms to compute the corresponding coverings.Comment: 29 pages, 10 figures, 1 tabl

Rainbow polygons for colored point sets in the plane

Given a colored point set in the plane, a perfect rainbow polygon is a simple polygon that contains exactly one point of each color, either in its interior or on its boundary. Let rb-index(S) denote the smallest size of a perfect rainbow polygon for a colored point set S, and let rb-index(k) be the maximum of rb-index(S) over all k-colored point sets in general position; that is, every k-colored point set S has a perfect rainbow polygon with at most rb-index(k) vertices. In this paper, we determine the values of rb-index(k) up to k=7, which is the first case where rb-index(k)¿k, and we prove that for k=5, [Formula presented] Furthermore, for a k-colored set of n points in the plane in general position, a perfect rainbow polygon with at most [Formula presented] vertices can be computed in O(nlogn) time. © 2021 Elsevier B.V