English

Enumeration of intersection graphs of $x$-monotone curves

Combinatorics 2026-01-12 v2

Abstract

A curve in the plane is xx-monotone if every vertical line intersects it at most once. A family of curves are called pseudo-segments if every pair of them have at most one point in common. We construct 2Ω(n4/3)2^{\Omega(n^{4/3})} families, each consisting of nn labelled xx-monotone pseudo-segments such that their intersection graphs are different. On the other hand, we show that the number of such intersection graphs is at most 2O(n4/3log2n)2^{O(n^{4/3}\log^2n)}. Our proof uses a new upper bound on the number of set systems of size mm on a ground set of size nn, with VC-dimension at most dd. Much better upper bounds are obtained if we only count bipartite intersection graphs, or, in general, intersection graphs with bounded chromatic number.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2405.20547,
  title  = {Enumeration of intersection graphs of $x$-monotone curves},
  author = {Jacob Fox and Janos Pach and Andrew Suk},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.20547},
  year   = {2026}
}