Solymosi's forbidden point-line configuration conjecture

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Let PP be a set of mm points and let L\mathcal{L} be a set of nn lines in the plane. Write I(P,L)I(P,\mathcal{L}) for the set of incidences between points of PP and lines of L\mathcal{L}, and let G(P,L)G(P,\mathcal{L}) be their incidence graph. Two configurations (P1,L1)(P_1,\mathcal{L}_1) and (P2,L2)(P_2,\mathcal{L}_2) are isomorphic when their incidence graphs are isomorphic.

Solymosi's conjecture. For any set of points P0P_0 and any set of lines L0\mathcal{L}_0 in the plane, the maximum number of incidences between nn points and nn lines in the plane containing no subconfiguration isomorphic to (P0,L0)(P_0,\mathcal{L}_0) is o(n4/3)o(n^{4/3}).

The conjecture asks whether forbidding every fixed point-line configuration improves the sharp Szemerédi--Trotter bound. It is known in several special cases, including configurations arising from point sets in general position and point sets that do not contain grids, but remains open in general.

References

Primary source

Martin Balko and Nóra Frankl, “On forbidden configurations in point-line incidence graphs”, arXiv:2409.00954 (2025).

Additional references

2 papers in this index state this conjecture (2018–2024). The statement above is taken from the most recent of them; the others are arXiv:1812.11162.

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