Abstract

We show that n arbitrary circles in the plane can be cut into O(n 3/2+# ) arcs, for any # > 0, such that any pair of arcs intersect at most once. This improves a recent result of Tamaki and Tokuyama [20]. We use this result to obtain improved upper bounds on the number of incidences between m points and n circles. An improved incidence bound is also obtained for graphs of polynomials of any constant maximum degree. 1 Introduction Let P be a finite set of points in the plane and C a finite set of circles. Let I = I(P, C) denote the number of incidences between the points and the circles. Let I(m, n) denote the maximum value of I(P, C), taken over all sets P of m points and sets C of n circles, and let I # (m, n, X) denote the maximum value of I(P, C), taken over all sets P of m points and sets C of n circles with at most X intersecting pairs. In this paper we derive improved upper bounds for I(m, n) and I # (m, n, X). The previous best upper bounds were I(m, n) = O(m 3/5 n 4/5 ...

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