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Combinatorics of Intervals in the Plane I: Trapezoids

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Abstract

We study arrangements of intervals in \(\mathbb {R}^2\) for which many pairs form trapezoids. We show that any set of intervals forming many trapezoids must have underlying algebraic structure, which we characterise. This leads to some unexpected examples of sets of intervals forming many trapezoids, where an important role is played by degree 2 curves.

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Acknowledgements

We’d like to thank the anonymous referees for improving the presentation of our results. The research of the first author was supported in part by a Four Year Doctoral Fellowship from the University of British Columbia. Research of the second author was supported in part by an NSERC Discovery grant, OTKA K 119528 and NKFI KKP 133819 grants. The research of the third author was supported in part by Killam and NSERC doctoral scholarships.

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Correspondence to József Solymosi.

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Di Benedetto, D., Solymosi, J. & White, E.P. Combinatorics of Intervals in the Plane I: Trapezoids. Discrete Comput Geom 69, 232–249 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00454-022-00456-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00454-022-00456-y

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