English

$K_{1,3}$-covering red and blue points in the plane

Combinatorics 2023-06-22 v3 Computational Geometry Discrete Mathematics

Abstract

We say that a finite set of red and blue points in the plane in general position can be K1,3K_{1,3}-covered if the set can be partitioned into subsets of size 44, with 33 points of one color and 11 point of the other color, in such a way that, if at each subset the fourth point is connected by straight-line segments to the same-colored points, then the resulting set of all segments has no crossings. We consider the following problem: Given a set RR of rr red points and a set BB of bb blue points in the plane in general position, how many points of RBR\cup B can be K1,3K_{1,3}-covered? and we prove the following results: (1) If r=3g+hr=3g+h and b=3h+gb=3h+g, for some non-negative integers gg and hh, then there are point sets RBR\cup B, like {1,3}\{1,3\}-equitable sets (i.e., r=3br=3b or b=3rb=3r) and linearly separable sets, that can be K1,3K_{1,3}-covered. (2) If r=3g+hr=3g+h, b=3h+gb=3h+g and the points in RBR\cup B are in convex position, then at least r+b4r+b-4 points can be K1,3K_{1,3}-covered, and this bound is tight. (3) There are arbitrarily large point sets RBR\cup B in general position, with r=b+1r=b+1, such that at most r+b5r+b-5 points can be K1,3K_{1,3}-covered. (4) If br3bb\le r\le 3b, then at least 89(r+b8)\frac{8}{9}(r+b-8) points of RBR\cup B can be K1,3K_{1,3}-covered. For r>3br>3b, there are too many red points and at least r3br-3b of them will remain uncovered in any K1,3K_{1,3}-covering. Furthermore, in all the cases we provide efficient algorithms to compute the corresponding coverings.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1707.06856,
  title  = {$K_{1,3}$-covering red and blue points in the plane},
  author = {Bernardo M. Ábrego and Silvia Fernández-Merchant and Mikio Kano and David Orden and Pablo Pérez-Lantero and Carlos Seara and Javier Tejel},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1707.06856},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

29 pages, 10 figures, 1 table