On Erdoes—Szekeres-Type Problems for k-convex Point Sets

摘要

We study Erdoes-Szekeres-type problems for k-convex point sets, a recently introduced notion that naturally extends the concept of convex position. A finite set S of n points is k-convex if there exists a spanning simple polygonization of S such that the intersection of any straight line with its interior consists of at most k connected components. We address several open problems about k-convex point sets. In particular, we extend the well-known Erdoes Szekeres Theorem by showing that, for every fixed k ∈ N, every set of n points in the plane in general position (with no three collinear points) contains a k-convex subset of size at least Ω(log~k_n). We also show that there are arbitrarily large 3-convex sets of n points in the plane in general position whose largest 1-convex subset has size O(log n). This gives a solution to a problem posed by Aichholzer et al. [2]. We prove that there is a constant c > 0 such that, for every n ∈ N, there is a set S of n points in the plane in general position such that every 2-convex polygon spanned by at least c · log n points from S contains a point of S in its interior. This matches an earlier upper bound by Aichholzer et al. [2] up to a multiplicative constant and answers another of their open problems.