On Higher Dimensional Point Sets in General Position

A finite point set in ℝ^d is in general position if no d + 1 points lie on a common hyperplane. Let α_d(N) be the largest integer such that any set of N points in ℝ^d with no d + 2 members on a common hyperplane, contains a subset of size α_d(N) in general position. Using the method of hypergraph containers, Balogh and Solymosi showed that α₂(N) < N^{5/6 + o(1)}. In this paper, we also use the container method to obtain new upper bounds for α_d(N) when d ≥ 3. More precisely, we show that if d is odd, then α_d(N) < N^{1/2 + 1/(2d) + o(1)}, and if d is even, we have α_d(N) < N^{1/2 + 1/(d-1) + o(1)}. We also study the classical problem of determining the maximum number a(d,k,n) of points selected from the grid [n]^d such that no k + 2 members lie on a k-flat. For fixed d and k, we show that a(d,k,n)≤ O(n^{d/{2⌊(k+2)/4⌋}(1- 1/{2⌊(k+2)/4⌋d+1})}), which improves the previously best known bound of O(n^{d/⌊(k + 2)/2⌋}) due to Lefmann when k+2 is congruent to 0 or 1 mod 4.