Levels in arrangements: Linear relations, the g-matrix, and applications to crossing numbers

A long-standing conjecture of Eckhoff, Linhart, and Welzl, which would generalize McMullen’s Upper Bound Theorem for polytopes and refine asymptotic bounds due to Clarkson, asserts that for k ⩽ ⌊(n-d-2)/2⌋, the complexity of the (⩽ k)-level in a simple arrangement of n hemispheres in S^d is maximized for arrangements that are polar duals of neighborly d-polytopes. We prove this conjecture in the case n = d+4. By Gale duality, this implies the following result about crossing numbers: In every spherical arc drawing of K_n in S² (given by a set V ⊂ S² of n unit vectors connected by spherical arcs), the number of crossings is at least 1/4 ⌊n/2⌋ ⌊(n-1)/2⌋ ⌊(n-2)/2⌋ ⌊(n-3)/2⌋. This lower bound is attained if every open linear halfspace contains at least ⌊(n-2)/2⌋ of the vectors in V. Moreover, we determine the space of all linear and affine relations that hold between the face numbers of levels in simple arrangements of n hemispheres in S^d. This completes a long line of research on such relations, answers a question posed by Andrzejak and Welzl in 2003, and generalizes the classical fact that the Dehn-Sommerville relations generate all linear relations between the face numbers of simple polytopes (which correspond to the 0-level). To prove these results, we introduce the notion of the g-matrix, which encodes the face numbers of levels in an arrangement and generalizes the classical g-vector of a polytope.