English

Mass Partitions via Equivariant Sections of Stiefel Bundles

Combinatorics 2023-11-10 v6 Algebraic Topology

Abstract

We consider a geometric combinatorial problem naturally associated to the geometric topology of certain spherical space forms. Given a collection of mm mass distributions on Rn\mathbb{R}^n, the existence of kk affinely independent regular qq-fans, each of which equipartitions each of the measures, can in many cases be deduced from the existence of a Zq\mathbb{Z}_q-equivariant section of the Stiefel bundle Vk(Fn)V_k(\mathbb{F}^n) over S(Fn)S(\mathbb{F}^n), where Vk(Fn)V_k(\mathbb{F}^n) is the Stiefel manifold of all orthonormal kk-frames in Fn,F=R\mathbb{F}^n,\, \mathbb{F} = \mathbb{R} or C\mathbb{C}, and S(Fn)S(\mathbb{F}^n) is the corresponding unit sphere. For example, the parallelizability of RPn\mathbb{R}P^n when n=2,4n = 2,4, or 88 implies that any two masses on Rn\mathbb{R}^n can be simultaneously bisected by each of (n1)(n-1) pairwise-orthogonal hyperplanes, while when q=3q=3 or 4, the triviality of the circle bundle V2(C2)/ZqV_2(\mathbb{C}^2)/\mathbb{Z}_q over the standard Lens Spaces L3(q)L^3(q) yields that for any mass on R4\mathbb{R}^4, there exist a pair of complex orthogonal regular qq-fans, each of which equipartitions the mass.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1011.1922,
  title  = {Mass Partitions via Equivariant Sections of Stiefel Bundles},
  author = {Steven Simon},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1011.1922},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

11 pages, final version