Related papers: Groups with maximal irredundant covers and minimal…

We count the connected components in the moduli space of PU(p,q)-representations of the fundamental group for a closed oriented surface. The components are labelled by pairs of integers which arise as topological invariants of the flat…

A simple counting argument is used to show that for all $q$, an Andr\'e hyper-regulus $\mathbb X$ in $PG(5,q)$ has exactly two switching sets. Moreover, there are exactly $2(q^2+q+1)$ planes in $PG(5,q)$ that meet every plane of $\mathbb X$…

Given a sequence $S=(s_1,\dots,s_m) \in [0, 1]^m$, a block $B$ of $S$ is a subsequence $B=(s_i,s_{i+1},\dots,s_j)$. The size $b$ of a block $B$ is the sum of its elements. It is proved in [1] that for each positive integer $n$, there is a…

Let $n\ge 2$ and $q\ge 2$ be given. The set $X = \mathbb Z_q^n$ is a metric space of diameter $n$ under the Hamming metric $d(\cdot,\cdot)$. We seek a smallest set $S\subseteq X$ that ``skirts'' every $q$-ary $n$-tuple in the sense that…

Any collection of $n$ compact convex planar sets $K_1,\dots, K_n$ defines a vector of ${n\choose 2}$ mixed areas $V(K_i,K_j)$ for $1\leq i<j\leq n$. We show that for $n\geq 4$ these numbers satisfy certain Pl\"ucker-type inequalities.…

Let $V$ denote an $r$-dimensional $\mathbb{F}_{q^n}$-vector space. For an $m$-dimensional $\mathbb{F}_q$-subspace $U$ of $V$ assume that $\dim_q \left(\langle {\bf v}\rangle_{\mathbb{F}_{q^n}} \cap U\right) \geq 2$ for each non zero vector…

We deal with group divisible designs that have block size 4 and group type g^u m^1, where g = 2 or 4 (mod 6). We show that the necessary conditions for the existence of a 4-GDD of type g^u m^1 are sufficient when g = 14, 20, 22, 26, 28, 32,…

The $q$-analogs of basic designs are discussed. It is proved that the existence of any unknown Steiner structures, the $q$-analogs of Steiner systems, implies the existence of unknown Steiner systems. Optimal $q$-analogs covering designs…

We characterize the number of points for which there exist non-empty Terracini sets of points in $\mathbb{P}^n$. Then we study minimally Terracini finite sets of points in $\mathbb{P}^n$ and we obtain a complete description in the case of…

We consider the number \bar N(q) of points in the projective complement of graph hypersurfaces over \F_q and show that the smallest graphs with non-polynomial \bar N(q) have 14 edges. We give six examples which fall into two classes. One…

The complement of a complex hyperplane arrangement is known to be homotopic to a minimal CW complex. There are several approaches to the minimality. In this paper, we restrict our attention to real two dimensional cases, and introduce the…

Let $G$ be a finite group, and let $\Delta(G)$ be the prime graph built on its set of conjugacy class sizes: this is the (simple undirected) graph whose vertices are the prime numbers dividing some conjugacy class size of $G$, and two…

In this paper, we study the p-ary linear code C(PG(n, q)), q = p^h, p prime, h >= 1, generated by the incidence matrix of points and hyperplanes of a Desarguesian projective space PG(n, q), and its dual code. We link the codewords of small…

Let $q$ be a prime power and $k$ be a natural number. What are the possible cardinalities of point sets ${S}$ in a projective plane of order $q$, which do not intersect any line at exactly $k$ points? This problem and its variants have been…

We solve two related extremal problems in the theory of permutations. A set $Q$ of permutations of the integers 1 to $n$ is inversion-complete (resp., pair-complete) if for every inversion $(j,i)$, where $1 \le i \textless{} j \le n$,…

We introduce a family of linear sets of $\mathrm{PG}(1,q^{2n})$ arising from maximum scattered linear sets of pseudoregulus type of $\mathrm{PG}(3,q^{n})$. For $n=3,4$ and for certain values of the parameters we show that these linear sets…

Using the $L^2$ norm of the Higgs field as a Morse function, we study the moduli spaces of $U(p,q)$-Higgs bundles over a Riemann surface. We require that the genus of the surface be at least two, but place no constraints on $(p,q)$. A key…

We study the minimum membership geometric set cover, i.e., MMGSC problem [SoCG, 2023] in the continuous setting. In this problem, the input consists of a set $P$ of $n$ points in $\mathbb{R}^{2}$, and a geometric object $t$, the goal is to…

A partial $(n,k,t)_\lambda$-system is a pair $(X,\mathcal{B})$ where $X$ is an $n$-set of vertices and $\mathcal{B}$ is a collection of $k$-subsets of $X$ called blocks such that each $t$-set of vertices is a subset of at most $\lambda$…

For positive integers $n\geq k\geq t$, a collection $ \mathcal{B} $ of $k$-subsets of an $n$-set $ X $ is called a $t$-packing if every $t$-subset of $ X $ appears in at most one set in $\mathcal{B}$. In this paper, we give some upper and…