Related papers: Proportion of blocking curves in a pencil

We show that the cliques of maximal size in the confluence graph of an arbitrary unital of order $q>2$ have size $q^2$, and that these cliques are the pencils of all blocks through a given point. This solves the Erd\H{o}s-Ko-Rado problem…

For each integer $k \in [0,9]$, we count the number of plane cubic curves defined over a finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$ that do not share a common component and intersect in exactly $k\ \mathbb{F}_q$-rational points. We set this up as a…

We consider the following question: Given $n$ lines and $n$ circles in $\mathbb{R}^3$, what is the maximum number of intersection points lying on at least one line and on at least one circle of these families. We prove that if there are no…

Let $p$ be a prime and $q = p^k$. A subset $\mathcal{F} \subset \operatorname{\Gamma L}_{2}(q)$ is intersecting if any two semilinear transformations in $\mathcal{F}$ agree on some non-zero vector in $\mathbb{F}_q^2$. We show that any…

A blocking set in an affine plane is a set of points $B$ such that every line contains at least one point of $B$. The best known lower bound for blocking sets in arbitrary (non-desarguesian) affine planes was derived in the 1980's by Bruen…

We bound the genus of a projective curve lying on a complete intersection surface in terms of its degree and the degrees of the defining equations of the surface on which it lies.

Call a curve $C \subset \mathbb{P}^2$ defined over $\mathbb{F}_q$ transverse-free if every line over $\mathbb{F}_q$ intersects $C$ at some closed point with multiplicity at least 2. In 2004, Poonen used a notion of density to treat Bertini…

We prove height bounds concerning intersections of finitely generated subgroups in a torus with algebraic subvarieties, all varying in a pencil. This vastly extends the previously treated constant case and involves entirely different, and…

We list up to M\"obius equivalence all possible degrees and embedding dimensions of real surfaces that are covered by at least two pencils of circles, together with the number of such pencils. In addition, we classify incidences between the…

The problem of constructing curves with many points over finite fields has received considerable attention in the recent years. Using the class field theory approach, we construct new examples of curves ameliorating some of the known…

We consider a question raised by Rudnev: given four pencils of $n$ concurrent lines in $\mathbb R^2$, with the four centres of the pencils non-collinear, what is the maximum possible size of the set of points where four lines meet? Our main…

We bound the number of fixed points of an automorphism of a real curve in terms of the genus and the number of connected components of the real part of the curve. Using this bound, we derive some consequences concerning the maximum order of…

We study the parameterized complexity of dominating sets in geometric intersection graphs. In one dimension, we investigate intersection graphs induced by translates of a fixed pattern Q that consists of a finite number of intervals and a…

We give a geometric approach to the relation between the irreducible components of the characteristic varieties of local systems on a plane curve arrangement complement and the associated pencils of plane curves discovered recently by M.…

A new class of geometric query problems are studied in this paper. We are required to preprocess a set of geometric objects $P$ in the plane, so that for any arbitrary query point $q$, the largest circle that contains $q$ but does not…

Let $\mathcal C :f=0$ be a curve arrangement in the complex projective plane. If $\mathcal C$ contains a curve subarrangement consisting of at least three members in a pencil, then one obtains an explicit syzygy among the partial…

We investigate the list packing number of a graph, the least $k$ such that there are always $k$ disjoint proper list-colourings whenever we have lists all of size $k$ associated to the vertices. We are curious how the behaviour of the list…

We give a short determination of the distribution of the number of $\F_q$-rational points on a random trigonal curve over $\F_q$, in the limit as the genus of the curve goes to infinity. In particular, the expected number of points is…

We classify all finite linear spaces on at most 15 points admitting a blocking set. There are no such spaces on 11 or fewer points, one on 12 points, one on 13 points, two on 14 points, and five on 15 points. The proof makes extensive use…

We prove explicit bounds on the number of lattice points on or near a convex curve in terms of geometric invariants such as length, curvature, and affine arclength. In several of our results we obtain the best possible constants. Our…