Spectral sequences in combinatorial geometry: Cheeses, inscribed sets, and Borsuk–Ulam type theorems

Algebraic topological methods are especially well suited for determining the non-existence of continuous mappings satisfying certain properties. In combinatorial problems it is sometimes possible to define a mapping from a space X of configurations to a Euclidean space R m in which a subspace, a discriminant, often an arrangement of linear subspaces A , expresses a target condition on the configurations. Add symmetries of all these data under a group G for which the mapping is equivariant. If we remove the discriminant from R m , we can pose the problem of the existence of an equivariant mapping from X to the complement of the discriminant in R m . Algebraic topology may sometimes be applied to show that no such mapping exists, and hence the image of the original equivariant mapping must meet the discriminant. roduce a general framework, based on a comparison of Leray–Serre spectral sequences. This comparison can be related to the theory of the Fadell–Husseini index. We apply the framework to:• a mass partition problem (antipodal cheeses) in R d , ine the existence of a class of inscribed 5-element sets on a deformed 2-sphere, two different generalizations of the theorem of Dold for the non-existence of equivariant maps which generalizes the Borsuk–Ulam theorem.