Depth in an arrangement of hyperplanes (Q1302033)

From MaRDI portal
scientific article
Language Label Description Also known as
English
Depth in an arrangement of hyperplanes
scientific article

    Statements

    Depth in an arrangement of hyperplanes (English)
    0 references
    0 references
    0 references
    11 September 2000
    0 references
    A collection of \(n\) hyperplanes in \(\mathbb R^d\) forms a hyperplane arrangement. The depth of a point \(\theta\in\mathbb R^d\) is the smallest number of hyperplanes crossed by any ray emanating from \(\theta.\) The authors prove that for \(d = 2\) there always exists a point \(\theta\) with depth at least \(\lceil n/3\rceil.\) This theorem allows to obtain a rather surprising result, which is a counterpart to the Birch's one about a configuration of points in the plane [\textit{B.~J.~Birch}, Proc. Camb. Philos. Soc. 55, 289-293 (1959; Zbl 0089.38502)]: Consider \(n = 3m\) lines in \(\mathbb R^2,\) all with distinct slopes. Then the \(n\) lines can be partitioned into \(m\) triplets (\(i, j, k)\) so that the \(m\) closed triangles \(\bigtriangleup(l_i, l_j, l_k)\) have a nonempty intersection. For \(d\geq 3\) the authors conjecture that the maximal depth is at least \(\lceil n/(d + 1)\rceil.\) For arrangements in general position, an upper bound \(\lfloor(n+d)/2\rfloor\) on the maximal depth is also established. Finally, algorithms to compute points with maximal depth are discussed.
    0 references
    hyperplane arrangement
    0 references
    arrangement depth of a point
    0 references
    bounds on maximal depth
    0 references

    Identifiers