Two-Dimensional Partial Cubes

We investigate the structure of two-dimensional partial cubes, i.e., of isometric subgraphs of hypercubes whose vertex set defines a set family of VC-dimension at most 2. Equivalently, those are the partial cubes which are not contractible to the 3-cube $Q_3$ (here contraction means contracting the edges corresponding to the same coordinate of the hypercube). We show that our graphs can be obtained from two types of combinatorial cells (gated cycles and gated full subdivisions of complete graphs) via amalgams. The cell structure of two-dimensional partial cubes enables us to establish a variety of results. In particular, we prove that all partial cubes of VC-dimension 2 can be extended to ample aka lopsided partial cubes of VC-dimension 2, yielding that the set families defined by such graphs satisfy the sample compression conjecture by Littlestone and Warmuth (1986) in a strong sense. The latter is a central conjecture of the area of computational machine learning, that is far from being solved even for general set systems of VC-dimension 2. Moreover, we point out relations to tope graphs of COMs of low rank and region graphs of pseudoline arrangements.

A Pseudoline Counterexample to the Strong Dirac Conjecture

We demonstrate an infinite family of pseudoline arrangements, in which an arrangement of $n$ pseudolines has no member incident to more than $4n/9$ points of intersection. This shows the "Strong Dirac" conjecture to be false for pseudolines.We also raise a number of open problems relating to possible differences between the structure of incidences between points and lines versus the structure of incidences between points and pseudolines.

The brick polytope of a sorting network

International audience The associahedron is a polytope whose graph is the graph of flips on triangulations of a convex polygon. Pseudotriangulations and multitriangulations generalize triangulations in two different ways, which have been unified by Pilaud and Pocchiola in their study of pseudoline arrangements with contacts supported by a given network. In this paper, we construct the "brick polytope'' of a network, obtained as the convex hull of the "brick vectors'' associated to each pseudoline arrangement supported by the network. We characterize its vertices, describe its faces, and decompose it as a Minkowski sum of simpler polytopes. Our brick polytopes include Hohlweg and Lange's many realizations of the associahedron, which arise as brick polytopes of certain well-chosen networks. L'associaèdre est un polytope dont le graphe est le graphe des flips sur les triangulations d'un polygone convexe. Les pseudotriangulations et les multitriangulations généralisent les triangulations dans deux directions différentes, qui ont été unifiées par Pilaud et Pocchiola au travers de leur étude des arrangements de pseudodroites avec contacts couvrant un support donné. Nous construisons ici le "polytope de briques'' d'un support, obtenu comme l'enveloppe convexe des "vecteurs de briques'' associés à chaque arrangement de pseudodroites couvrant ce support. Nous caractérisons les sommets de ce polytope, décrivons ses faces et le décomposons en somme de Minkowski de polytopes élémentaires. Notre construction contient toutes les réalisations de l'associaèdre d'Hohlweg et Lange, qui apparaissent comme polytopes de briques de certains supports bien choisis.

Symmetric Simplicial Pseudoline Arrangements

A simplicial arrangement of pseudolines is a collection of topological lines in the projective plane where each region that is formed is triangular. This paper refines and develops David Eppstein's notion of a kaleidoscope construction for symmetric pseudoline arrangements to construct and analyze several infinite families of simplicial pseudoline arrangements with high degrees of geometric symmetry. In particular, all simplicial pseudoline arrangements with the symmetries of a regular $k$-gon and three symmetry classes of pseudolines, consisting of the mirrors of the $k$-gon and two other symmetry classes, plus sometimes the line at infinity, are classified, and other interesting families (with more symmetry classes of pseudolines) are discussed.