English

Two extensions of the Erd\H{o}s-Szekeres problem

Combinatorics 2020-08-04 v3

Abstract

According to Suk's breakthrough result on the Erdos-Szekeres problem, any point set in general position in the plane, which has no nn elements that form the vertex set of a convex nn-gon, has at most 2n+O(n2/3logn)2^{n+O\left({n^{2/3}\log n}\right)} points. We strengthen this theorem in two ways. First, we show that the result generalizes to convexity structures induced by pseudoline arrangements. Second, we improve the error term. A family of nn convex bodies in the plane is said to be in convex position if the convex hull of the union of no n1n-1 of its members contains the remaining one. If any three members are in convex position, we say that the family is in general position. Combining our results with a theorem of Dobbins, Holmsen, and Hubard, we significantly improve the best known upper bounds on the following two functions, introduced by Bisztriczky and Fejes Toth and by Pach and Toth, respectively. Let c(n)c(n) (and c(n)c'(n)) denote the smallest positive integer NN with the property that any family of NN pairwise disjoint convex bodies in general position (resp., NN convex bodies in general position, any pair of which share at most two boundary points) has an nn-membered subfamily in convex position. We show that c(n)c(n)2n+O(nlogn)c(n)\le c'(n)\leq 2^{n+O\left(\sqrt{n\log n}\right)}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1710.11415,
  title  = {Two extensions of the Erd\H{o}s-Szekeres problem},
  author = {Andreas F. Holmsen and Hossein Nassajian Mojarrad and János Pach and Gábor Tardos},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1710.11415},
  year   = {2020}
}