Incidence bounds for complex algebraic curves on Cartesian products (Q2417592)

The Szemerédi-Trotter theorem states that for a finite set \(P\) of points in \(\mathbb{R}^2\) and a finite set \(L\) of lines in \(\mathbb{R}^2\) the set of incidences, denoted by \(I(P,L):=\{(p,\ell)\in P\times L: p\in\ell\}\), satisfies \[ |I(P,L)|=O(|P|^{2/3}|L|^{2/3}+|P|+|L|). \] The main result of the present article generalizes this bound as follows. Let \(\mathcal{P}\) be the Cartesian product \(A\times B\), where \(A\) and \(B\) are finite subsets of \(\mathbb{C}\) such that \(|A|=|B|\). Let \(\mathcal{C}\) be a finite set of curves in \(\mathbb{C}^2\) of degree at most \(d\), such that any two points of \(\mathcal{P}\) are contained in at most \(M\) curves of \(\mathcal{C}\). Then \[ |I(\mathcal{P},\mathcal{C})|=O(d^{4/3}M^{1/3}|\mathcal{P}|^{2/3}|\mathcal{C}|^{2/3}+M(\log M+\log d)|\mathcal{P}|+d^4|\mathcal{C}|). \] The proof of this bound uses a polynomial partitioning technique. Previously known incidence bounds of similar type were either weaker, or over \(\mathbb{R}^2\) instead of \(\mathbb{C}^2\), or required that the curves in \(\mathcal{C}\) are smooth and intersect transversally. The bound in this article has no such restrictive conditions, but there is the Cartesian product assumption for \(\mathcal{P}\) instead. The authors motivate their result with several interesting applications, where this Cartesian product assumption holds in a natural way. For the entire collection see [Zbl 1411.52002].