English

On transversal and $2$-packing numbers in straight line systems on $\mathbb{R}^{2}$

Combinatorics 2017-10-09 v1

Abstract

A linear system is a pair (X,F)(X,\mathcal{F}) where F\mathcal{F} is a finite family of subsets on a ground set XX, and it satisfies that AB1|A\cap B|\leq 1 for every pair of distinct subsets A,BFA,B \in \mathcal{F}. As an example of a linear system are the straight line systems, which family of subsets are straight line segments on R2\mathbb{R}^{2}. By τ\tau and ν2\nu_2 we denote the size of the minimal transversal and the 2--packing numbers of a linear system respectively. A natural problem is asking about the relationship of these two parameters; it is not difficult to prove that there exists a quadratic function ff holding τf(ν2)\tau\leq f(\nu_2). However, for straight line system we believe that τν21\tau\leq\nu_2-1. In this paper we prove that for any linear system with 22-packing numbers ν2\nu_2 equal to 2,32, 3 and 44, we have that τν2\tau\leq\nu_2. Furthermore, we prove that the linear systems that attains the equality have transversal and 22-packing numbers equal to 44, and they are a special family of linear subsystems of the projective plane of order 33. Using this result we confirm that all straight line systems with ν2{2,3,4}\nu_2\in\{2,3,4\} satisfies τν21\tau\leq\nu_2-1.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1509.03696,
  title  = {On transversal and $2$-packing numbers in straight line systems on $\mathbb{R}^{2}$},
  author = {Gabriela Araujo-Pardo and Amanda Montejano and Luis Montejano and Adrián Vázquez-Ávila},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1509.03696},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

22 pages, 7 figures