Related papers: On the linearity of higher-dimensional blocking se…

Musta\c{t}\u{a} has given a conjecture for the graded Betti numbers in the minimal free resolution of the ideal of a general set of points on an irreducible projective algebraic variety. For surfaces in $\mathbb P^3$ this conjecture has…

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 structure of all graphs having minimum rank at most k over a finite field with q elements is characterized for any possible k and q. A strong connection between this characterization and polarities of projective geometries is explained.…

Motivated by a question of Erd\H{o}s on blocking sets in a projective plane that intersect every line only a few times, several authors have used unions of algebraic curves to construct such sets in $\mathbb{P}^2(\mathbb{F}_q)$. In this…

We introduce generator blocking sets of finite classical polar spaces. These sets are a generalisation of maximal partial spreads. We prove a characterization of these minimal sets of the polar spaces Q(2n,q), Q-(2n+1,q) and H(2n,q^2), in…

In this paper, we explicitly classify the minimal discriminants of all elliptic curves $E/\mathbb{Q}$ with a non-trivial torsion subgroup. This is done by considering various parameterized families of elliptic curves with the property that…

For a polynomial $g(x)$ of deg $k \geq 2$ with integer coefficients and positive integer leading coefficient, we prove an upper bound for the least prime $p$ such that $g(p)$ is in non-homogeneous Beatty sequence $\lbrace \lfloor \alpha…

In this paper, we show that a set of q+a hyperplanes, q>13, a<(q-10)/4, that does not cover PG(n,q), does not cover at least q^(n-1)-aq^(n-2) points, and show that this lower bound is sharp. If the number of non- covered points is at most…

Given a finite poset $\mathcal P$, how small can a family $\mathcal F$ of subsets of $[n]$ be such that $\mathcal F$ does not contain an induced copy of $\mathcal P$, but $\mathcal F\cup\{X\}$ contains such a copy for all $X\in\mathcal…

Linear rank-width is a graph width parameter, which is a variation of rank-width by restricting its tree to a caterpillar. As a corollary of known theorems, for each $k$, there is a finite obstruction set $\mathcal{O}_k$ of graphs such that…

Let $p_n$ denote the $n$th smallest prime number, and let $\boldsymbol{L}$ denote the set of limit points of the sequence $\{(p_{n+1} - p_n)/\log p_n\}_{n = 1}^{\infty}$ of normalized differences between consecutive primes. We show that for…

The subject of this paper is the study of small complete arcs in $\mathrm{PG}(2,q)$, for $q$ odd, with at least $(q+1)/2$ points on a conic. We give a short comprehensive proof of the completeness problem left open by Segre in his seminal…

We formulate a conjecture on the behavior of the minimal free resolutions of sets of general points on arbitrary varieties embedded by complete linear series, in analogy with the well-known Minimal Resolution Conjecture for points in…

A generating set for a finite group $G$ is said to be minimal if no proper subset generates $G$, and $m(G)$ denotes the maximal size of a minimal generating set for $G$. We prove a conjecture of Lucchini, Moscatiello and Spiga by showing…

Let G=PGL(2,q) be the projective general linear group acting on the projective line P_q. A subset S of G is intersecting if for any pair of permutations \pi,\sigma in S, there is a projective point p in P_q such that p^\pi=p^\sigma. We…

For $w$ in the symmetric group, we provide an exact formula for the smallest positive power $q^{h(w)}$ appearing in the Kazhdan-Lusztig polynomial $P_{e,w}(q)$. We also provide a tight upper bound on $h(w)$ in simply-laced types, resolving…

In recent years, many connections have been made between minimal codes, a classical object in coding theory, and other remarkable structures in finite geometry and combinatorics. One of the main problems related to minimal codes is to give…

The Big-Line-Big-Clique Conjecture of Kara, Por and Wood asserts that, for every fixed $k$ and $\ell$, every sufficiently large finite planar point set contains either $k$ collinear points or $\ell$ pairwise visible points. We prove a…

A (q,k,t)-design matrix is an m x n matrix whose pattern of zeros/non-zeros satisfies the following design-like condition: each row has at most q non-zeros, each column has at least k non-zeros and the supports of every two columns…

We give a simple geometric proof that $e$ is irrational, using a construction of a nested sequence of closed intervals with intersection $e$. The proof leads to a new measure of irrationality for $e$: if $p$ and $q$ are integers with $q >…