Realizing an m-uniform four-chromatic hypergraph with disks

Abstract

We prove that for every $m$ there is a finite point set $\mathcal{P}$ in the plane such that no matter how $\mathcal{P}$ is three-colored, there is always a disk containing exactly $m$ points, all of the same color. This improves a result of Pach, Tardos and Tóth who proved the same for two colors. The main ingredient of the construction is a subconstruction whose points are in convex position. Namely, we show that for every $m$ there is a finite point set $\mathcal{P}$ in the plane in convex position such that no matter how $\mathcal{P}$ is two-colored, there is always a disk containing exactly $m$ points, all of the same color. We also prove that for unit disks no similar construction can work, and several other results.

17 pages, 7 figures