Abstract
LetG={l 1,...,l n } be a collection ofn segments in the plane, none of which is vertical. Viewing them as the graphs of partially defined linear functions ofx, letY G be their lower envelope (i.e., pointwise minimum).Y G is a piecewise linear function, whose graph consists of subsegments of the segmentsl i . Hart and Sharir [7] have shown thatY G consists of at mostO(nα(n)) segments (whereα(n) is the extremely slowly growing inverse Ackermann's function). We present here a construction of a setG ofn segments for whichY G consists ofΩ(nα(n)) subsegments, proving that the Hart-Sharir bound is tight in the worst case.Another interpretation of our result is in terms of Davenport-Schinzel sequences: the sequenceE G of indices of segments inG in the order in which they appear alongY G is a Davenport-Schinzel sequence of order 3, i.e., no two adjacent elements ofE G are equal andE G contains no subsequence of the forma ...b ...a ...b ...a. Hart and Sharir have shown that the maximal length of such a sequence composed ofn symbols is Θ(nα(n)). Our result shows that the lower bound construction of Hart and Sharir can be realized by the lower envelope ofn straight segments, thus settling one of the main open problems in this area.
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