English

Constructing large k-systems on Surfaces

Geometric Topology 2016-02-25 v3 Combinatorics

Abstract

Let SgS_{g} denote the genus gg closed orientable surface. For kNk\in \mathbb{N}, a kk-system is a collection of pairwise non-homotopic simple closed curves such that no two intersect more than kk times. Juvan-Malni\v{c}-Mohar \cite{Ju-Mal-Mo} showed that there exists a kk-system on SgS_{g} whose size is on the order of gk/4g^{k/4}. For each k2k\geq 2, We construct a kk-system on SgS_{g} with on the order of g(k+1)/2+1g^{\lfloor (k+1)/2 \rfloor +1} elements. The kk-systems we construct behave well with respect to subsurface inclusion, analogously to how a pants decomposition contains pants decompositions of lower complexity subsurfaces.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1403.5123,
  title  = {Constructing large k-systems on Surfaces},
  author = {Tarik Aougab},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1403.5123},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

12 pages, 8 figures; revised to acknowledge partial NSF support, fixed typos

R2 v1 2026-06-22T03:30:44.832Z