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

Equidistribution of the Fekete points on the sphere

The Fekete points are the points that maximize a Vandermonde-type determinant that appears in the polynomial Lagrange interpolation formula. They are well suited points for interpolation formulas and numerical integration. We prove the asymptotic equidistribution of the Fekete points in the sphere. The way we proceed is by showing their connection with other array of points, the Marcinkiewicz-Zygmund arrays and the interpolating arrays, that have been studied recently

Fluid/solid transition in a hard-core system

We prove that a system of particles in the plane, interacting only with a certain hard-core constraint, undergoes a fluid/solid phase transition

Equidistribution of the Fekete points on the sphere

The Fekete points are the points that maximize a Vandermonde-type determinant that appears in the polynomial Lagrange interpolation formula. They are well suited points for interpolation formulas and numerical integration. We prove the asymptotic equidistribution of the Fekete points in the sphere. The way we proceed is by showing their connection with other array of points, the Marcinkiewicz-Zygmund arrays and the interpolating arrays, that have been studied recently

On reconfiguration of disks in the plane and related problems

We revisit two natural reconfiguration models for systems of disjoint objects in the plane: translation and sliding. Consider a set of n pairwise interior-disjoint objects in the plane that need to be brought from a given start (initial) configuration S into a desired goal (target) configuration T, without causing collisions. In the translation model, in one move an object is translated along a fixed direction to another position in the plane. In the sliding model, one move is sliding an object to another location in the plane by means of an arbitrarily complex continuous motion (that could involve rotations). We obtain various combinatorial and computational results for these two models: (I) For systems of n congruent disks in the translation model, Abellanas et al. showed that 2n − 1 moves always suffice and ⌊8n/5 ⌋ moves are sometimes necessary for transforming the start configuration into the target configuration. Here we further improve the lower bound to ⌊5n/3 ⌋ − 1, and thereby give a partial answer to one of their open problems. (II) We show that the reconfiguration problem with congruent disks in the translation model is NPhard, in both the labeled and unlabeled variants. This answers another open problem of Abellanas et al. (III) We also show that the reconfiguration problem with congruent disks in the sliding model is NP-hard, in both the labeled and unlabeled variants. (IV) For the reconfiguration with translations of n arbitrary convex bodies in the plane, 2n moves are always sufficient and sometimes necessary

A Generalization of the Convex Kakeya Problem

Given a set of line segments in the plane, not necessarily finite, what is a convex region of smallest area that contains a translate of each input segment? This question can be seen as a generalization of Kakeya's problem of finding a convex region of smallest area such that a needle can be rotated through 360 degrees within this region. We show that there is always an optimal region that is a triangle, and we give an optimal \Theta(n log n)-time algorithm to compute such a triangle for a given set of n segments. We also show that, if the goal is to minimize the perimeter of the region instead of its area, then placing the segments with their midpoint at the origin and taking their convex hull results in an optimal solution. Finally, we show that for any compact convex figure G, the smallest enclosing disk of G is a smallest-perimeter region containing a translate of every rotated copy of G.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figure

Contact numbers for congruent sphere packings in Euclidean 3-space

Continuing the investigations of Harborth (1974) and the author (2002) we study the following two rather basic problems on sphere packings. Recall that the contact graph of an arbitrary finite packing of unit balls (i.e., of an arbitrary finite family of non-overlapping unit balls) in Euclidean 3-space is the (simple) graph whose vertices correspond to the packing elements and whose two vertices are connected by an edge if the corresponding two packing elements touch each other. One of the most basic questions on contact graphs is to find the maximum number of edges that a contact graph of a packing of n unit balls can have in Euclidean 3-space. Our method for finding lower and upper estimates for the largest contact numbers is a combination of analytic and combinatorial ideas and it is also based on some recent results on sphere packings. Finally, we are interested also in the following more special version of the above problem. Namely, let us imagine that we are given a lattice unit sphere packing with the center points forming the lattice L in Euclidean 3-space (and with certain pairs of unit balls touching each other) and then let us generate packings of n unit balls such that each and every center of the n unit balls is chosen from L. Just as in the general case we are interested in finding good estimates for the largest contact number of the packings of n unit balls obtained in this way.Comment: 18 page

Optimally Dense Packings for Fully Asymptotic Coxeter Tilings by Horoballs of Different Types

The goal of this paper to determine the optimal horoball packing arrangements and their densities for all four fully asymptotic Coxeter tilings (Coxeter honeycombs) in hyperbolic 3-space $\mathbb{H}^3$. Centers of horoballs are required to lie at vertices of the regular polyhedral cells constituting the tiling. We allow horoballs of different types at the various vertices. Our results are derived through a generalization of the projective methodology for hyperbolic spaces. The main result states that the known B\"or\"oczky--Florian density upper bound for "congruent horoball" packings of $\mathbb{H}^3$ remains valid for the class of fully asymptotic Coxeter tilings, even if packing conditions are relaxed by allowing for horoballs of different types under prescribed symmetry groups. The consequences of this remarkable result are discussed for various Coxeter tilings.Comment: 26 pages, 10 figure

Basic Understanding of Condensed Phases of Matter via Packing Models

Packing problems have been a source of fascination for millenia and their study has produced a rich literature that spans numerous disciplines. Investigations of hard-particle packing models have provided basic insights into the structure and bulk properties of condensed phases of matter, including low-temperature states (e.g., molecular and colloidal liquids, crystals and glasses), multiphase heterogeneous media, granular media, and biological systems. The densest packings are of great interest in pure mathematics, including discrete geometry and number theory. This perspective reviews pertinent theoretical and computational literature concerning the equilibrium, metastable and nonequilibrium packings of hard-particle packings in various Euclidean space dimensions. In the case of jammed packings, emphasis will be placed on the "geometric-structure" approach, which provides a powerful and unified means to quantitatively characterize individual packings via jamming categories and "order" maps. It incorporates extremal jammed states, including the densest packings, maximally random jammed states, and lowest-density jammed structures. Packings of identical spheres, spheres with a size distribution, and nonspherical particles are also surveyed. We close this review by identifying challenges and open questions for future research.Comment: 33 pages, 20 figures, Invited "Perspective" submitted to the Journal of Chemical Physics. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1008.298