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1. Point-hyperplane Incidence Geometry and the Log-rank Conjecture

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3543684  

   Singer, Noah; Sudan, Madhu (June 2022, ACM Transactions on Computation Theory)

   We study the log-rank conjecture from the perspective of point-hyperplane incidence geometry. We formulate the following conjecture: Given a point set in ℝ d that is covered by constant-sized sets of parallel hyperplanes, there exists an affine subspace that accounts for a large (i.e., 2 –polylog( d ) ) fraction of the incidences, in the sense of containing a large fraction of the points and being contained in a large fraction of the hyperplanes. In other words, the point-hyperplane incidence graph for such configurations has a large complete bipartite subgraph. Alternatively, our conjecture may be interpreted linear-algebraically as follows: Any rank- d matrix containing at most O (1) distinct entries in each column contains a submatrix of fractional size 2 –polylog( d ) , in which each column is constant. We prove that our conjecture is equivalent to the log-rank conjecture; the crucial ingredient of this proof is a reduction from bounds for parallel k -partitions to bounds for parallel ( k -1)-partitions. We also introduce an (apparent) strengthening of the conjecture, which relaxes the requirements that the sets of hyperplanes be parallel. Motivated by the connections above, we revisit well-studied questions in point-hyperplane incidence geometry without structural assumptions (i.e., the existence of partitions). We give an elementary argument for the existence of complete bipartite subgraphs of density Ω (ε 2 d / d ) in any d -dimensional configuration with incidence density ε, qualitatively matching previous results proved using sophisticated geometric techniques. We also improve an upper-bound construction of Apfelbaum and Sharir [ 2 ], yielding a configuration whose complete bipartite subgraphs are exponentially small and whose incidence density is Ω (1/√ d ). Finally, we discuss various constructions (due to others) of products of Boolean matrices which yield configurations with incidence density Ω (1) and complete bipartite subgraph density 2 -Ω (√ d ) , and pose several questions for this special case in the alternative language of extremal set combinatorics. Our framework and results may help shed light on the difficulty of improving Lovett’s Õ(√ rank( f )) bound [ 20 ] for the log-rank conjecture. In particular, any improvement on this bound would imply the first complete bipartite subgraph size bounds for parallel 3-partitioned configurations which beat our generic bounds for unstructured configurations. 

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2. Zarankiewicz’s problem for semilinear hypergraphs

   https://doi.org/10.1017/fms.2021.52  

   Basit, Abdul; Chernikov, Artem; Starchenko, Sergei; Tao, Terence; Tran, Chieu-Minh (January 2021, Forum of Mathematics, Sigma)

   Abstract A bipartite graph $$H = \left (V_1, V_2; E \right )$$ with $$\lvert V_1\rvert + \lvert V_2\rvert = n$$ is semilinear if $$V_i \subseteq \mathbb {R}^{d_i}$$ for some $$d_i$$ and the edge relation E consists of the pairs of points $$(x_1, x_2) \in V_1 \times V_2$$ satisfying a fixed Boolean combination of s linear equalities and inequalities in $$d_1 + d_2$$ variables for some s . We show that for a fixed k , the number of edges in a $$K_{k,k}$$ -free semilinear H is almost linear in n , namely $$\lvert E\rvert = O_{s,k,\varepsilon }\left (n^{1+\varepsilon }\right )$$ for any $$\varepsilon> 0$$ ; and more generally, $$\lvert E\rvert = O_{s,k,r,\varepsilon }\left (n^{r-1 + \varepsilon }\right )$$ for a $$K_{k, \dotsc ,k}$$ -free semilinear r -partite r -uniform hypergraph. As an application, we obtain the following incidence bound: given $$n_1$$ points and $$n_2$$ open boxes with axis-parallel sides in $$\mathbb {R}^d$$ such that their incidence graph is $$K_{k,k}$$ -free, there can be at most $$O_{k,\varepsilon }\left (n^{1+\varepsilon }\right )$$ incidences. The same bound holds if instead of boxes, one takes polytopes cut out by the translates of an arbitrary fixed finite set of half-spaces. We also obtain matching upper and (superlinear) lower bounds in the case of dyadic boxes on the plane, and point out some connections to the model-theoretic trichotomy in o -minimal structures (showing that the failure of an almost-linear bound for some definable graph allows one to recover the field operations from that graph in a definable manner). 

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3. Affine Stresses, Inverse Systems, and Reconstruction Problems

   https://doi.org/10.1093/imrn/rnad294  

   Murai, Satoshi; Novik, Isabella; Zheng, Hailun (December 2023, International Mathematics Research Notices)

   Abstract A conjecture of Kalai asserts that for $$d\geq 4$$, the affine type of a prime simplicial $$d$$-polytope $$P$$ can be reconstructed from the space of affine $$2$$-stresses of $$P$$. We prove this conjecture for all $$d\geq 5$$. We also prove the following generalization: for all pairs $(i,d)$ with $$2\leq i\leq \lceil \frac d 2\rceil -1$$, the affine type of a simplicial $$d$$-polytope $$P$$ that has no missing faces of dimension $$\geq d-i+1$$ can be reconstructed from the space of affine $$i$$-stresses of $$P$$. A consequence of our proofs is a strengthening of the Generalized Lower Bound Theorem: it was proved by Nagel that for any simplicial $(d-1)$-sphere $$\Delta $$ and $$1\leq k\leq \lceil \frac {d}{2}\rceil -1$$, $$g_{k}(\Delta )$$ is at least as large as the number of missing $(d-k)$-faces of $$\Delta $$; here we show that, for $$1\leq k\leq \lfloor \frac {d}{2}\rfloor -1$$, equality holds if and only if $$\Delta $$ is $$k$$-stacked. Finally, we show that for $$d\geq 4$$, any simplicial $$d$$-polytope $$P$$ that has no missing faces of dimension $$\geq d-1$$ is redundantly rigid, that is, for each edge $$e$$ of $$P$$, there exists an affine $$2$$-stress on $$P$$ with a non-zero value on $$e$$. 

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4. Topological Realizations of Line Arrangements

   https://doi.org/10.1093/imrn/rnx190  

   Ruberman, Daniel; Starkston, Laura (August 2017, International Mathematics Research Notices)

   Abstract A venerable problem in combinatorics and geometry asks whether a given incidence relation may be realized by a configuration of points and lines. The classic version of this would ask for lines in a projective plane over a field. An important variation allows for pseudolines: embedded circles (isotopic to $$\mathbb R\rm{P}^1$$) in the real projective plane. In this article we investigate whether a configuration is realized by a collection of 2-spheres embedded, in symplectic, smooth, and topological categories, in the complex projective plane. We find obstructions to the existence of topologically locally flat spheres realizing a configuration, and show for instance that the combinatorial configuration corresponding to the projective plane over any finite field is not realized. Such obstructions are used to show that a particular contact structure on certain graph manifolds is not (strongly) symplectically fillable. We also show that a configuration of real pseudolines can be complexified to give a configuration of smooth, indeed symplectically embedded, 2-spheres. 

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5. Improved Bounds on a Generalization of Tuza's Conjecture

   https://doi.org/10.37236/10829  

   Basit, Abdul; McGinnis, Daniel; Simmons, Henry; Sinnwell, Matt; Zerbib, Shira (October 2022, The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics)

   For an $$r$$-uniform hypergraph $$H$$, let $$\nu^{(m)}(H)$$ denote the maximum size of a set $$M$$ of edges in $$H$$ such that every two edges in $$M$$ intersect in less than $$m$$ vertices, and let $$\tau^{(m)}(H)$$ denote the minimum size of a collection $$C$$ of $$m$$-sets of vertices such that every edge in $$H$$ contains an element of $$C$$. The fractional analogues of these parameters are denoted by $$\nu^{*(m)}(H)$$ and $$\tau^{*(m)}(H)$$, respectively. Generalizing a famous conjecture of Tuza on covering triangles in a graph, Aharoni and Zerbib conjectured that for every $$r$$-uniform hypergraph $$H$$, $$\tau^{(r-1)}(H)/\nu^{(r-1)}(H) \leq \lceil{\frac{r+1}{2}}\rceil$$. In this paper we prove bounds on the ratio between the parameters $$\tau^{(m)}$$ and $$\nu^{(m)}$$, and their fractional analogues. Our main result is that, for every $$r$$-uniform hypergraph~$$H$$,\[ \tau^{*(r-1)}(H)/\nu^{(r-1)}(H) \le \begin{cases} \frac{3}{4}r - \frac{r}{4(r+1)} &\text{for }r\text{ even,}\\\frac{3}{4}r - \frac{r}{4(r+2)} &\text{for }r\text{ odd.} \\\end{cases} \]This improves the known bound of $$r-1$.We also prove that, for every $$r$$-uniform hypergraph $$H$$, $$\tau^{(m)}(H)/\nu^{*(m)}(H) \le \operatorname{ex}_m(r, m+1)$$, where the Turán number $$\operatorname{ex}_r(n, k)$$ is the maximum number of edges in an $$r$$-uniform hypergraph on $$n$$ vertices that does not contain a copy of the complete $$r$$-uniform hypergraph on $$k$$ vertices. Finally, we prove further bounds in the special cases $(r,m)=(4,2)$ and $(r,m)=(4,3)$. 

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