English

The $18\cdot 2^t+1$ Triangle-Maximal Series of Straight Lines

Combinatorics 2026-04-27 v1

Abstract

Given nn lines in general position in the plane, how many bounded triangular faces can the arrangement have? We construct a straight-line affine arrangement of 1919 lines satisfying the conditions of the iterative construction by Bartholdi, Blanc, and Loisel, thereby obtaining an infinite series of straight-line arrangements attaining the maximum number of bounded triangles for every n=182t+1n=18\cdot 2^t+1. The conditions are verified by computer-assisted interval and combinatorial checks. A computational search over n=21n=21, 2323, 2727 lines provides strong evidence against the existence of further base configurations compatible with the known iterative constructions, but reveals arrangements allowing a single iterative step that yield arrangements of 4141 and 4545 lines with 533533 and 645645 bounded triangles, respectively, each matching the upper bound.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.22035,
  title  = {The $18\cdot 2^t+1$ Triangle-Maximal Series of Straight Lines},
  author = {Roman Parpalak and Denis Utkin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.22035},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

19 pages, 9 figures. Verification scripts and data: https://github.com/parpalak/triangle-maximal-18-series