Hirzebruch-type inequalities viewed as tools in combinatorics

DOI10.37236/8335MaRDI QIDQ2223461zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Publication date 29 January 2021

Published in The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Copyright license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1808.09167

IPFS File on IPFS (Hint: this is only the Hash - if you get a timeout, this file is not available on our server.)

Configurations and arrangements of linear subspaces (14N20) Geometric aspects of tropical varieties (14T20) Relations with arrangements of hyperplanes (32S22) Planar arrangements of lines and pseudolines (aspects of discrete geometry) (52C30) Arrangements of points, flats, hyperplanes (aspects of discrete geometry) (52C35)

Abstract: The main purpose of this survey is to provide an introduction, algebro-topological in nature, to Hirzebuch-type inequalities for plane curve arrangements in the complex projective plane. These inequalities gain more and more interest due to their utility in many combinatorial problems related to point or line arrangements in the plane. We would like to present a summary of the technicalities and also some recent applications, for instance in the context of the Weak Dirac Conjecture. We also advertise some open problems and questions.

Review text

Hirzebruch's inequality for complex line arrangements in the projective plane is an important tool in solving numerous problems in combinatorial geometry. For example, it can be applied in the context of Sylvester-Gallai type theorem over the complex numbers, a problem of J.~P.~Serre (See [\textit{L. M. Kelly}, Discrete Comput. Geom. 1, 101--104 (1986; Zbl 0593.51002)]). However there is no known elementary proof of this inequality. The inequality is obtained as a by-product of Hirzebruch's construction, the Hirzebruch-Kummer cover of the complex projective plane branched along an arrangement of lines, which allowed him to construct new examples of algebraic surfaces of general type, so-called ball-quotients. The author in this survey article introduces Hirzebruch's inequality and stronger Hirzebruch's type inequalities which follow from Langer's inequality such as the inequality due to Bojanowksi (\url{http://www.mimuw.edu.pl/\%7Ealan/postscript/bojanowski.ps}). He presents an accessible outline of \textit{F. Hirzebruch}'s paper [Prog. Math. 36, 113--140 (1983; Zbl 0527.14033)] and other stronger Hirzebruch-type inequalities which allowed researchers to make progress on classical conjectures in combinatorics. Three applications are mentioned. (1): The Weak Dirac Conjecture that holds with \(c=3\), (2): If \(\mathcal{P}\) is a subset of \(n\) distinct points in \(\mathbb{C}^2\) with at most \(\frac{2n}{3}\) collinear then \(\mathcal{P}\) determines at least \(\frac{n(n+15)}{18} \approx \frac{n^2}{18}\) lines with at most four points on each of them. (3) (a): Let \(\mathcal{L}\) be a simplicial line arrangement in \(\mathbb{P}^2(\mathbb{R})\) such that \(t_2\geq t_3\) and \(t_i=0\) for \(i\not\in \{2,3,x\}\). Then \(x\leq 8\). (3) (b): Let \(\mathcal{L}\) be a simplicial line arrangement in \(\mathbb{P}^2(\mathbb{R})\) then \(\max(t_2,t_3)>\lceil \frac{d^2+3d}{27} \rceil\). Later the author presents some natural generalizations of Hirzebruch's inequality for line arrangements in the context of higher degree plane curves. Two applications in \(d\)-arrangements, one application in conic-line arrangements and an application in pseudoline arrangements are mentioned. Finally the problem of obtaining Hirzebruch's inequality is translated in the language of tropical geometry and the author poses the following two questions: (1): Is it possible to show a Hirzebruch-type inequality using the language of tropical geometry, or its tropical variation? (2): Is it possible to find tropical analogues of the Bogomolov-Miyaoka-Yau inequality?

Recommendations

Cites work

Cited in

(7)

This page was built for publication: Hirzebruch-type inequalities viewed as tools in combinatorics

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q2223461)