Helly numbers of acyclic families

DOI10.1016/J.AIM.2013.11.004MaRDI QIDQ2445970zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Éric Colin de Verdière, Grégory Ginot, Xavier Goaoc

Publication date 15 April 2014

Published in Advances in Mathematics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1101.6006, https://hal.inria.fr/hal-00646166/file/08helly.pdf

spectral sequences Helly number Helly's theorem nerve theorem topological combinatorics geometric transversals simplicial poset Leray number

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Combinatorial aspects of simplicial complexes (05E45) Helly-type theorems and geometric transversal theory (52A35) Spectral sequences in algebraic topology (55T99)

Abstract: The Helly number of a family of sets with empty intersection is the size of its largest inclusion-wise minimal sub-family with empty intersection. Let F be a finite family of open subsets of an arbitrary locally arc-wise connected topological space Gamma. Assume that for every sub-family G of F the intersection of the elements of G has at most r connected components, each of which is a Q-homology cell. We show that the Helly number of F is at most r(d_Gamma+1), where d_Gamma is the smallest integer j such that every open set of Gamma has trivial Q-homology in dimension j and higher. (In particular d_{R^d} = d). This bound is best possible. We prove, in fact, a stronger theorem where small sub-families may have more than r connected components, each possibly with nontrivial homology in low dimension. As an application, we obtain several explicit bounds on Helly numbers in geometric transversal theory for which only ad hoc geometric proofs were previously known; in certain cases, the bound we obtain is better than what was previously known.

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