Saturating sets in projective planes and hypergraph covers

Let $\Pi_q$ be an arbitrary finite projective plane of order $q$. A subset $S$ of its points is called saturating if any point outside $S$ is collinear with a pair of points from $S$. Applying probabilistic tools we improve the upper bound on the smallest possible size of the saturating set to $\lceil\sqrt{3q\ln{q}}\rceil+ \lceil(\sqrt{q}+1)/2\rceil$. The same result is presented using an algorithmic approach as well, which points out the connection with the transversal number of uniform multiple intersecting hypergraphs.Comment: 10 pages, detailed calculations are included compared to V

A Unifying Hierarchy of Valuations with Complements and Substitutes

We introduce a new hierarchy over monotone set functions, that we refer to as $\mathcal{MPH}$ (Maximum over Positive Hypergraphs). Levels of the hierarchy correspond to the degree of complementarity in a given function. The highest level of the hierarchy, $\mathcal{MPH}$-$m$ (where $m$ is the total number of items) captures all monotone functions. The lowest level, $\mathcal{MPH}$-$1$, captures all monotone submodular functions, and more generally, the class of functions known as $\mathcal{XOS}$. Every monotone function that has a positive hypergraph representation of rank $k$ (in the sense defined by Abraham, Babaioff, Dughmi and Roughgarden [EC 2012]) is in $\mathcal{MPH}$-$k$. Every monotone function that has supermodular degree $k$ (in the sense defined by Feige and Izsak [ITCS 2013]) is in $\mathcal{MPH}$-$(k+1)$. In both cases, the converse direction does not hold, even in an approximate sense. We present additional results that demonstrate the expressiveness power of $\mathcal{MPH}$-$k$. One can obtain good approximation ratios for some natural optimization problems, provided that functions are required to lie in low levels of the $\mathcal{MPH}$ hierarchy. We present two such applications. One shows that the maximum welfare problem can be approximated within a ratio of $k+1$ if all players hold valuation functions in $\mathcal{MPH}$-$k$. The other is an upper bound of $2k$ on the price of anarchy of simultaneous first price auctions. Being in $\mathcal{MPH}$-$k$ can be shown to involve two requirements -- one is monotonicity and the other is a certain requirement that we refer to as $\mathcal{PLE}$ (Positive Lower Envelope). Removing the monotonicity requirement, one obtains the $\mathcal{PLE}$ hierarchy over all non-negative set functions (whether monotone or not), which can be fertile ground for further research

Further results on covering codes with radius R and codimension tR + 1

The length function $\ell_q(r,R)$ is the smallest possible length $n$ of a $q$-ary linear $[n,n-r]_qR$ code with codimension (redundancy) $r$ and covering radius $R$. Let $s_q(N,\rho)$ be the smallest size of a $\rho$-saturating set in the projective space $\mathrm{PG}(N,q)$. There is a one-to-one correspondence between $[n,n-r]_qR$ codes and $(R-1)$-saturating $n$-sets in $\mathrm{PG}(r-1,q)$ that implies $\ell_q(r,R)=s_q(r-1,R-1)$. In this work, for $R\ge3$, new asymptotic upper bounds on $\ell_q(tR+1,R)$ are obtained in the following form: $\hspace{0.7cm} \bullet~\ell_q(tR+1,R) =s_q(tR,R-1)\le \sqrt[R]{\frac{R!}{R^{R-2}}}\cdot q^{(r-R)/R}\cdot\sqrt[R]{\ln q}+o(q^{(r-R)/R}), \hspace{0.3cm}r=tR+1,~t\ge1,~ q\text{ is an arbitrary prime power},~q\text{ is large enough};$ $\hspace{0.7cm} \bullet~\text{ if additionally }R\text{ is large enough, then }\sqrt[R]{\frac{R!}{R^{R-2}}}\thicksim\frac{1}{e}\thickapprox0.3679.$ The new bounds are essentially better than the known ones. For $t=1$, a new construction of $(R-1)$-saturating sets in the projective space $\mathrm{PG}(R,q)$, providing sets of small sizes, is proposed. The $[n,n-(R+1)]_qR$ codes, obtained by the construction, have minimum distance $R + 1$, i.e. they are almost MDS (AMDS) codes. These codes are taken as the starting ones in the lift-constructions (so-called "$q^m$-concatenating constructions") for covering codes to obtain infinite families of codes with growing codimension $r=tR+1$, $t\ge1$.Comment: 24 pages. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2108.1360

Saturating linear sets of minimal rank

Saturating sets are combinatorial objects in projective spaces over finite fields that have been intensively investigated in the last three decades. They are related to the so-called covering problem of codes in the Hamming metric. In this paper, we consider the recently introduced linear version of such sets, which is, in turn, related to the covering problem in the rank metric. The main questions in this context are how small the rank of a saturating linear set can be and how to construct saturating linear sets of small rank. Recently, Bonini, Borello, and Byrne provided a lower bound on the rank of saturating linear sets in a given projective space, which is shown to be tight in some cases. In this paper, we provide construction of saturating linear sets meeting the lower bound and we develop a link between the saturating property and the scatteredness of linear sets. The last part of the paper is devoted to show some parameters for which the bound is not tight.Comment: 26 page

Matroid Stratifications of Hypergraph Varieties, Their Realization Spaces, and Discrete Conditional Independence Models

We study varieties associated to hypergraphs from the point of view of projective geometry and matroid theory. We describe their decompositions into matroid varieties, which may be reducible and can have arbitrary singularities by the Mnëv–Sturmfels universality theorem. We focus on various families of hypergraph varieties for which we explicitly compute an irredundant irreducible decomposition. Our main findings in this direction are three-fold: (1) we describe minimal matroids of such hypergraphs; (2) we prove that the varieties of these matroids are irreducible and their union is the hypergraph variety; and (3) we show that every such matroid is realizable over real numbers. As corollaries, we give conceptual decompositions of various, previously studied, varieties associated with graphs, hypergraphs, and adjacent minors of generic matrices. In particular, our decomposition strategy gives immediate matroid interpretations of the irreducible components of multiple families of varieties associated to conditional independence models in statistical theory and unravels their symmetric structures which hugely simplifies the computations