Two Disjoint 5-Holes in Point Sets

Abstract

Given a set of points $S\subseteq {\mathbb{R}}^2$, a subset $X\subseteq S$ with $|X|=k$ is called $k$-gon if all points of $X$ lie on the boundary of the convex hull of $X$, and $k$-hole if, in addition, no point of $S\setminus X$ lies in the convex hull of $X$. We use computer assistance to show that every set of 17 points in general position admits two disjoint 5-holes, that is, holes with disjoint respective convex hulls. This answers a question of Hosono and Urabe (2001). We also provide new bounds for three and more pairwise disjoint holes. In a recent article, Hosono and Urabe (2018) present new results on interior-disjoint holes -- a variant, which also has been investigated in the last two decades. Using our program, we show that every set of 15 points contains two interior-disjoint 5-holes. Moreover, our program can be used to verify that every set of 17 points contains a 6-gon within significantly smaller computation time than the original program by Szekeres and Peters (2006). Another independent verification of this result was done by Marić (2019).