Several remarks on star-shaped sets (Q1569754)

As the main result the author proves the following Helly-type theorem for star-shaped sets. Let \(\{K_i,i\in I\}\) be a family of star-shaped sets in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) such that the intersection of any subfamily with cardinality \(I_0\leq n+1\) is nonempty and star-shaped. Then the intersection of all the sets of the family is nonempty and star-shaped. This follows from a known Helly-type theorem for homology cells combined with a new criterium for star-shapedness of compact sets involving intersection properties of families of star-shaped subsets which exhibit ``regularity'' properties with respect to a given cone. As an application a criterium for non-empty intersection of convex sets in terms of star-shapedness property is obtained.