On Covering Numbers, Young Diagrams, and the Local Dimension of Posets

We study covering numbers and local covering numbers with respect to difference graphs and complete bipartite graphs. In particular we show that in every cover of a Young diagram with $binom{2k}{k}$ steps with generalized rectangles there is a row or a column in the diagram that is used by at least $k+1$ rectangles, and prove that this is best-possible. This answers two questions by Kim, Martin, Masa{v{r}}{i}k, Shull, Smith, Uzzell, and Wang (Europ. J. Comb. 2020), namely: - What is the local complete bipartite cover number of a difference graph? - Is there a sequence of graphs with constant local difference graph cover number and unbounded local complete bipartite cover number? We add to the study of these local covering numbers with a lower bound construction and some examples. Following Kim emph{et al.}, we use the results on local covering numbers to provide lower and upper bounds for the local dimension of partially ordered sets of height~2. We discuss the local dimension of some posets related to Boolean lattices and show that the poset induced by the first two layers of the Boolean lattice has local dimension $(1 + o(1))log_2log_2 n$. We conclude with some remarks on covering numbers for digraphs and Ferrers dimension.

On the Average Complexity of the $k$-Level

Let ${cal L}$ be an arrangement of $n$ lines in the Euclidean plane. The emph{$k$-level} of ${cal L}$ consists of all vertices $v$ of the arrangement which have exactly $k$ lines of ${cal L}$ passing below $v$. The complexity (the maximum size) of the $k$-level in a line arrangement has been widely studied. In 1998 Dey proved an upper bound of $O(ncdot (k+1)^{1/3})$. Due to the correspondence between lines in the plane and great-circles on the sphere, the asymptotic bounds carry over to arrangements of great-circles on the sphere, where the $k$-level denotes the vertices at distance at most $k$ to a marked cell, the emph{south pole}. We prove an upper bound of $O((k+1)^2)$ on the expected complexity of the $k$-level in great-circle arrangements if the south pole is chosen uniformly at random among all cells. We also consider arrangements of great $(d-1)$-spheres on the sphere $mathbb{S}^d$ which are orthogonal to a set of random points on $mathbb{S}^d$. In this model, we prove that the expected complexity of the $k$-level is of order $Theta((k+1)^{d-1})$.

Line and Plane Cover Numbers Revisited

A measure for the visual complexity of a straight-line crossing-free drawing of a graph is the minimum number of lines needed to cover all vertices. For a given graph $G$, the minimum such number (over all drawings in dimension $d in {2,3}$) is called the emph{$d$-dimensional weak line cover number} and denoted by $pi^1_d(G)$. In 3D, the minimum number of emph{planes} needed to cover all vertices of~$G$ is denoted by $pi^2_3(G)$. When edges are also required to be covered, the corresponding numbers $rho^1_d(G)$ and $rho^2_3(G)$ are called the emph{(strong) line cover number} and the emph{(strong) plane cover number}. Computing any of these cover numbers -- except $pi^1_2(G)$ -- is known to be NP-hard. The complexity of computing $pi^1_2(G)$ was posed as an open problem by Chaplick et al. [WADS 2017]. We show that it is NP-hard to decide, for a given planar graph~$G$, whether $pi^1_2(G)=2$. We further show that the universal stacked triangulation of depth~$d$, $G_d$, has $pi^1_2(G_d)=d+1$. Concerning~3D, we show that any $n$-vertex graph~$G$ with $rho^2_3(G)=2$ has at most $5n-19$ edges, which is tight.

On the Maximum Crossing Number

Research about crossings is typically about minimization. In this paper, we consider emph{maximizing} the number of crossings over all possible ways to draw a given graph in the plane. Alpert et al. [Electron. J. Combin., 2009] conjectured that any graph has a emph{convex} straight-line drawing, e.g., a drawing with vertices in convex position, that maximizes the number of edge crossings. We disprove this conjecture by constructing a planar graph on twelve vertices that allows a non-convex drawing with more crossings than any convex one. Bald et al. [Proc. COCOON, 2016] showed that it is NP-hard to compute the maximum number of crossings of a geometric graph and that the weighted geometric case is NP-hard to approximate. We strengthen these results by showing hardness of approximation even for the unweighted geometric case and prove that the unweighted topological case is NP-hard.