Flat transversals to flats and convex sets of a fixed dimension (Q2370622)

A finite family of flats in a projective space is said to be \(m\)-generic if each \(m+1\) of them are in general position (i.e., the dimension of the projective span of their union is the largest possible). A finite family of convex sets in a Euclidean space is called \(m\)-generic if so is the family of the projective flats they span. The main results in this paper are: Theorem 1. An \(m\)-generic family of \(n\)-flats has a transversal \(m\)-flat if every subfamily of cardinality \(\lfloor \frac{1}{2}(3n+2m+7)\rfloor \) has a transversal \(m\)-flat. Theorem 2. An \(m\)-generic family of convex sets of dimension \(n\) has a transversal \(m\)-flat if they correspond to an order type of dimension \(m\) such that every subfamily of cardinality \(2n+m+3\) has a transversal \(m\)-flat compatible with that order type. The proofs are based on Helly type theorems for linear partitions (i.e., unions of flats in general position) and convex partitions (i.e., subsets of a Euclidean space whose connected components are convex and the projective flats they span are in general position).