The Complexity of Separating Points in the Plane

We study the following separation problem: given n connected curves and two points s and t in the plane, compute the minimum number of curves one needs to retain so that any path connecting s to t intersects some of the retained curves. We give the first polynomial (O(n3)) time algorithm for the problem, assuming that the curves have reasonable computational properties. The algorithm is based on considering the intersection graph of the curves, defining an appropriate family of closed walks in the intersection graph that satisfies the 3-path-condition, and arguing that a shortest cycle in the family gives an optimal solution. The 3-path-condition has been used mainly in topological graph theory, and thus its use here makes the connection to topology clear. We also show that the generalized version, where several input points are to be separated, is NP-hard for natural families of curves, like segments in two directions or unit circles

Simplified broken Lefschetz fibrations and trisections of 4-manifolds

Shapes of four dimensional spaces can be studied effectively via maps to standard surfaces. We explain, and illustrate by quintessential examples, how to simplify such generic maps on 4-manifolds topologically, in order to derive simple decompositions into much better understood manifold pieces. Our methods not only allow us to produce various interesting families of examples, but also to establish a correspondence between simplified broken Lefschetz fibrations and simplified trisections of closed, oriented 4-manifolds.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figure

Optimal Point Placement for Mesh Smoothing

We study the problem of moving a vertex in an unstructured mesh of triangular, quadrilateral, or tetrahedral elements to optimize the shapes of adjacent elements. We show that many such problems can be solved in linear time using generalized linear programming. We also give efficient algorithms for some mesh smoothing problems that do not fit into the generalized linear programming paradigm.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures. A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the 8th ACM/SIAM Symp. on Discrete Algorithms (SODA '97). This is the final version, and will appear in a special issue of J. Algorithms for papers from SODA '9