Point-curve incidences in the complex plane

Abstract: We prove an incidence theorem for points and curves in the complex plane. Given a set of

m

points in

{m a t h b b R}^{2}

and a set of

n

curves with

k

degrees of freedom, Pach and Sharir proved that the number of point-curve incidences is

. We establish the slightly weaker bound

on the number of incidences between

m

points and

n

(complex) algebraic curves in

{m a t h b b C}^{2}

with

k

degrees of freedom. We combine tools from algebraic geometry and differential geometry to prove a key technical lemma that controls the number of complex curves that can be contained inside a real hypersurface. This lemma may be of independent interest to other researchers proving incidence theorems over

m a t h b b C

.

Review text

Let \(K\) denote either \(\mathbb{R}\) or \(\mathbb{C}\). Given a finite set of points \({\mathcal P}\) in \(K^2\) and a finite set of curves \({\mathcal C}\) in \(K^2\), the arrangement \(( {\mathcal P}, {\mathcal C})\) is said to have \(k\) degrees of freedom and multiplicity type \(s\), if (i) for any \(k\) points of \({\mathcal P}\), there are at most \(s\) curves from \({\mathcal C}\) containing all \(k\) points, and (ii) any pair of curves from \({\mathcal C}\) intersect in at most \(s\) points of \({\mathcal P}\). The following theorem holds: For each \(k\geq 1\), \(D\geq 1\), \(s\geq 1\) and \(\varepsilon >0\), there exists a constant \(C=C_{\varepsilon,D,s,k}\), such that for any set \({\mathcal P}\) of \(m\) points in the complex plane and any set \({\mathcal C}\) of \(n\) complex algebraic curves of degree at most \(D\), if \(( {\mathcal P}, {\mathcal C})\) has \(k\) degrees of freedom and multiplicity type \(s\), then the number of incidences between \({\mathcal P}\) and \({\mathcal C}\) is at most \[ C( m^{\frac{k}{2k-1}+\varepsilon} n^{\frac{2k-2}{2k-1}} +m+n). \] Such results have been known in the real case even without the \(\varepsilon\) in the exponent (see [\textit{J. Pach} and \textit{M. Sharir}, Comb. Probab. Comput. 7, No. 1, 121--127 (1998; Zbl 0901.52016)]).

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