English

A Sparse colorful polytopal KKM Theorem

Combinatorics 2021-12-30 v1

Abstract

Recently Sober\'on proved a far-reaching generalization of the colorful KKM Theorem due to Gale: let nkn\geq k, and assume that a family of closed sets (Ajii[n],j[k])(A^i_j\mid i\in [n], j\in [k]) has the property that for every I([n]nk+1)I\in \binom{[n]}{n-k+1}, the family (iIA1i,,iIAki)\big(\bigcup_{i\in I}A^i_1,\dots,\bigcup_{i\in I}A^i_k\big) is a KKM cover of the (k1)(k-1)-dimensional simplex Δk1\Delta^{k-1}; then there is an injection π:[k][n]\pi:[k] \rightarrow [n] so that i=1kAiπ(i)\bigcap_{i=1}^k A_i^{\pi(i)}\neq \emptyset. We prove a polytopal generalization of this result, answering a question of Sober\'on in the same note. We also discuss applications of our theorem to fair division of multiple cakes, dd-interval piercing, and a generalization of the colorful Carath\'eodory theorem.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2112.14421,
  title  = {A Sparse colorful polytopal KKM Theorem},
  author = {Daniel McGinnis and Shira Zerbib},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2112.14421},
  year   = {2021}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-24T08:34:22.968Z