English

How many times can two minimum spanning trees cross?

Computational Geometry 2026-01-29 v1 Combinatorics

Abstract

Let PP be a generic set of nn points in the plane, and let P=RBP=R\cup B be a coloring of PP in two colors. We are interested in the number of crossings between the minimum spanning trees (MSTs) of RR and BB, denoted by \crossAB(R,B)\crossAB(R,B). We define the \emph{bicolored MST crossing number} of PP, denoted by \cross(P)\cross(P), as \cross(P)=maxP=RB(\crossAB(R,B))\cross(P) = \max_{P= R\cup B}(\crossAB(R,B)). We prove a linear upper bound for \cross(P)\cross(P) when PP is generic. If PP is dense or in convex position, we provide linear lower bounds. Lastly, if PP is chosen uniformly at random from the unit square and is colored uniformly at random, we prove that the expected value of \crossAB(R,B)\crossAB(R,B) is linear.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.20060,
  title  = {How many times can two minimum spanning trees cross?},
  author = {Todor Antić and Morteza Saghafian and Maria Saumell and Felix Schröder and Josef Tkadlec and Pavel Valtr},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.20060},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

27 pages, 16 figures, to appear in proceedings of LATIN 2026

R2 v1 2026-07-01T09:22:58.029Z