Polychromatic coloring for half-planes

Abstract

We prove that for every integer k, every finite set of points in the plane can be k-colored so that every half-plane that contains at least 2k-1 points, also contains at least one point from every color class. We also show that the bound 2k-1 is best possible. This improves the best previously known lower and upper bounds of 4/3k and 4k-1 respectively. As a corollary, we also show that every finite set of half-planes can be k colored so that if a point p belongs to a subset Hp of at least 4k-3 of the half-planes then Hp contains a half-plane from every color class. This improves the best previously known upper bound of 8k-3. Another corollary of our first result is a new proof of the existence of small size ε-nets for points in the plane with respect to half-planes. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.