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Incidence structure
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In mathematics, an incidence structure is an abstract system consisting of two types of objects and a
single relationship between these types of objects. Consider the points and lines of the Euclidean plane as
the two types of objects and ignore all the properties of this geometry except for the relation of which
points are on which lines for all points and lines. What is left is the incidence structure of the Euclidean
plane.

Incidence structures are most often considered in the geometrical

context where they are abstracted from, and hence generalize,
planes (such as affine, projective, and Möbius planes), but the
concept is very broad and not limited to geometric settings. Even in
a geometric setting, incidence structures are not limited to just
points and lines; higher-dimensional objects (planes, solids, n-
spaces, conics, etc.) can be used. The study of finite structures is
sometimes called finite geometry.[1]

Contents

Formal definition and terminology

Examples
Graphs

Linear spaces

Nets

Dual structure

Other terminology
Hypergraphs

Block designs
Example: Fano plane

Representations Examples of incidence structures:

Example 1: points and lines of the
Incidence matrix
Euclidean plane (top)
Pictorial representations Example 2: points and circles (middle),
Example 3: finite incidence structure
Realizability
defined by an incidence matrix (bottom)
Incidence graph (Levi graph)
Levi graph examples

Generalization

See also

Notes

References

Bibliography

Further reading

Formal definition and terminology

An incidence structure is a triple (P, L, I) where P is a set whose elements are called points, L is a distinct
set whose elements are called lines and I ⊆ P × L is the incidence relation. The elements of I are called
flags. If (p, l) is in I then one may say that point p "lies on" line l or that the line l "passes through" point p. A
more "symmetric" terminology, to reflect the symmetric nature of this relation, is that "p is incident with l"
or that "l is incident with p" and uses the notation p I l synonymously with (p, l) ∈ I.[2]

In some common situations L may be a set of subsets of P in which case incidence I will be containment (p I
l if and only if p is a member of l). Incidence structures of this type are called set-theoretic.[3] This is not
always the case, for example, if P is a set of vectors and L a set of square matrices, we may define

This example also shows that while the geometric language of points and lines is used, the object types
need not be these geometric objects.

Examples

Main article: Incidence geometry

Some examples of incidence structures

1. Fano plane 2. Non-uniform structure 3. Generalized quadrangle

4. Möbius–Kantor configuration 5. Pappus configuration

An incidence structure is uniform if each line is incident with the same number of points. Each of these
examples, except the second, is uniform with three points per line.

Graphs

Any graph (which need not be simple; loops and multiple edges are allowed) is a uniform incidence
structure with two points per line. For these examples, the vertices of the graph form the point set, the
edges of the graph form the line set, and incidence means that a vertex is an endpoint of an edge.

Linear spaces

Incidence structures are seldom studied in their full generality; it is typical to study incidence structures
that satisfy some additional axioms. For instance, a partial linear space is an incidence structure that
satisfies:

1. Any two distinct points are incident with at most one common line, and

2. Every line is incident with at least two points.

If the first axiom above is replaced by the stronger:

3. Any two distinct points are incident with exactly one common line,

the incidence structure is called a linear space.[4][5]

Nets

A more specialized example is a k-net. This is an incidence structure in which the lines fall into k parallel
classes, so that two lines in the same parallel class have no common points, but two lines in different
classes have exactly one common point, and each point belongs to exactly one line from each parallel class.
An example of a k-net is the set of points of an affine plane together with k parallel classes of affine lines.

Dual structure

If we interchange the role of "points" and "lines" in

we obtain the dual structure,

where I∗ is the converse relation of I. It follows immediately from the definition that:

This is an abstract version of projective duality.[2]

A structure C that is isomorphic to its dual C∗ is called self-dual. The Fano plane above is a self-dual
incidence structure.

Other terminology

The concept of an incidence structure is very simple and has arisen in several disciplines, each introducing
its own vocabulary and specifying the types of questions that are typically asked about these structures.
Incidence structures use a geometric terminology, but in graph theoretic terms they are called hypergraphs
and in design theoretic terms they are called block designs. They are also known as a set system or family
of sets in a general context.

Hypergraphs
Main article: Hypergraph

Each hypergraph or set system can be regarded as an incidence

structure in which the universal set plays the role of "points", the
corresponding family of sets plays the role of "lines" and the
incidence relation is set membership "∈". Conversely, every
incidence structure can be viewed as a hypergraph by identifying the
lines with the sets of points that are incident with them.

Block designs
Main article: Block design

A (general) block design is a set X together with a family F of

Seven points are elements of seven lines
subsets of X (repeated subsets are allowed). Normally a block in the Fano plane
design is required to satisfy numerical regularity conditions. As an
incidence structure, X is the set of points and F is the set of lines, usually called blocks in this context
(repeated blocks must have distinct names, so F is actually a set and not a multiset). If all the subsets in F
have the same size, the block design is called uniform. If each element of X appears in the same number of
subsets, the block design is said to be regular. The dual of a uniform design is a regular design and vice
versa.

Example: Fano plane

Consider the block design/hypergraph given by:

This incidence structure is called the Fano plane. As a block design it is both uniform and regular.

In the labeling given, the lines are precisely the subsets of the points that consist of three points whose
labels add up to zero using nim addition. Alternatively, each number, when written in binary, can be
identified with a non-zero vector of length three over the binary field. Three vectors that generate a
subspace form a line; in this case, that is equivalent to their vector sum being the zero vector.

Representations

Incidence structures may be represented in many ways. If the sets P and L are finite these representations
can compactly encode all the relevant information concerning the structure.

Incidence matrix
Main article: Incidence matrix

The incidence matrix of a (finite) incidence structure is a (0,1) matrix that has its rows indexed by the
points {pi} and columns indexed by the lines {lj} where the ij-th entry is a 1 if pi I lj and 0 otherwise.[a] An
incidence matrix is not uniquely determined since it depends upon the arbitrary ordering of the points and
the lines.[6]

The non-uniform incidence structure pictured above (example number 2) is given by:

An incidence matrix for this structure is:

which corresponds to the incidence table:

I l m n o p q

A 0 0 0 1 1 0

B 0 0 0 0 1 1

C 1 0 0 0 0 0

D 0 0 1 0 0 0

E 1 0 0 0 0 0

P 1 1 1 1 0 1

If an incidence structure C has an incidence matrix M, then the dual structure C∗ has the transpose matrix
MT as its incidence matrix (and is defined by that matrix).

An incidence structure is self-dual if there exists an ordering of the points and lines so that the incidence
matrix constructed with that ordering is a symmetric matrix.

With the labels as given in example number 1 above and with points ordered A, B, C, D, G, F, E and lines
ordered l, p, n, s, r, m, q, the Fano plane has the incidence matrix:

Since this is a symmetric matrix, the Fano plane is a self-dual incidence structure.

Pictorial representations

An incidence figure (that is, a depiction of an incidence structure), is constructed by representing the points
by dots in a plane and having some visual means of joining the dots to correspond to lines.[6] The dots may
be placed in any manner, there are no restrictions on distances between points or any relationships between
points. In an incidence structure there is no concept of a point being between two other points; the order of
points on a line is undefined. Compare this with ordered geometry, which does have a notion of
betweenness. The same statements can be made about the depictions of the lines. In particular, lines need
not be depicted by "straight line segments" (see examples 1, 3 and 4 above). As with the pictorial
representation of graphs, the crossing of two "lines" at any place other than a dot has no meaning in terms
of the incidence structure; it is only an accident of the representation. These incidence figures may at times
resemble graphs, but they aren't graphs unless the incidence structure is a graph.

Realizability

Incidence structures can be modelled by points and curves in the Euclidean plane with the usual geometric
meaning of incidence. Some incidence structures admit representation by points and (straight) lines.
Structures that can be are called realizable. If no ambient space is mentioned then the Euclidean plane is
assumed. The Fano plane (example 1 above) is not realizable since it needs at least one curve. The Möbius–
Kantor configuration (example 4 above) is not realizable in the Euclidean plane, but it is realizable in the
complex plane.[7] On the other hand, examples 2 and 5 above are realizable and the incidence figures given
there demonstrate this. Steinitz (1894)[8] has shown that n3-configurations (incidence structures with n
points and n lines, three points per line and three lines through each point) are either realizable or require
the use of only one curved line in their representations.[9] The Fano plane is the unique (73) and the
Möbius–Kantor configuration is the unique (83).

Incidence graph (Levi graph)

Each incidence structure C corresponds to a bipartite graph called

the Levi graph or incidence graph of the structure. As any bipartite
graph is two-colorable, the Levi graph can be given a black and
white vertex coloring, where black vertices correspond to points and
white vertices correspond to lines of C. The edges of this graph
correspond to the flags (incident point/line pairs) of the incidence
structure. The original Levi graph was the incidence graph of the
generalized quadrangle of order two (example 3 above),[10] but the
term has been extended by H.S.M. Coxeter[11] to refer to an
incidence graph of any incidence structure.[12]
Heawood graph with labeling
Levi graph examples

The Levi graph of the Fano plane is the Heawood graph. Since the
Heawood graph is connected and vertex-transitive, there exists an
automorphism (such as the one defined by a reflection about the
vertical axis in the figure of the Heawood graph) interchanging black
and white vertices. This, in turn, implies that the Fano plane is self-
dual.

The specific representation, on the left, of the Levi graph of the

Möbius–Kantor configuration (example 4 above) illustrates that a
rotation of π/4 about the center (either clockwise or
Levi graph of the Möbius–Kantor
counterclockwise) of the diagram interchanges the blue and red
configuration (#4)
vertices and maps edges to edges. That is to say that there exists a
color interchanging automorphism of this graph. Consequently, the incidence structure known as the
Möbius–Kantor configuration is self-dual.

Generalization

It is possible to generalize the notion of an incidence structure to include more than two types of objects. A
structure with k types of objects is called an incidence structure of rank k or a rank k geometry.[12] Formally
these are defined as k + 1 tuples S = (P1, P2, ..., Pk, I) with Pi ∩ Pj = ∅ and

The Levi graph for these structures is defined as a multipartite graph with vertices corresponding to each
type being colored the same.

See also

Incidence (geometry)

Incidence geometry

Projective configuration

Abstract polytope

Notes

a. ^ The other convention of indexing the rows by lines and the columns by points is also widely used.

References

1. ^ Colbourn & Dinitz 2007, p. 702 9. ^ Gropp, Harald (1997), "Configurations and their
realizations", Discrete Mathematics, 174: 137–151,
2. ^ a b
Dembowski 1968, pp. 1–2
doi:10.1016/s0012-365x(96)00327-5
3. ^ Biliotti, Jha & Johnson 2001, p. 508
10. ^ Levi, F. W. (1942), Finite Geometrical Systems,
4. ^ The term linear space is also used to refer to Calcutta: University of Calcutta, MR 0006834
vector spaces, but this will rarely cause confusion.
11. ^ Coxeter, H.S.M. (1950), "Self-dual configurations
5. ^ Moorhouse 2014, p. 5 and regular graphs", Bulletin of the American
Mathematical Society, 56: 413–455,
6. ^ a b
Beth, Jungnickel & Lenz 1986, p. 17
doi:10.1090/s0002-9904-1950-09407-5
7. ^ Pisanski & Servatius 2013, p. 222
12. ^ a b
Pisanski & Servatius 2013, p. 158
8. ^ E. Steinitz (1894), Über die Construction der
Configurationen n3, Dissertation, Breslau

Bibliography

Beth, Thomas; Jungnickel, Dieter; Lenz, Hanfried (1986), Design Theory , Cambridge University Press,
ISBN 3-411-01675-2

Biliotti, Mauro; Jha, Vikram; Johnson, Norman L. (2001), Foundations of Translation Planes, Marcel
Dekker, ISBN 0-8247-0609-9

Colbourn, Charles J.; Dinitz, Jeffrey H. (2007), Handbook of Combinatorial Designs (2nd ed.), Boca
Raton: Chapman & Hall/ CRC, ISBN 1-58488-506-8

Dembowski, Peter (1968), Finite geometries , Ergebnisse der Mathematik und ihrer Grenzgebiete, Band
44, Berlin, New York: Springer-Verlag, ISBN 3-540-61786-8, MR 0233275

Moorhouse, G. Eric (2014). "Incidence Geometry" (PDF) – via John Baez at University of California,
Riverside.

Pisanski, Tomaž; Servatius, Brigitte (2013), Configurations from a Graphical Viewpoint, Springer,
doi:10.1007/978-0-8176-8364-1 , ISBN 978-0-8176-8363-4

Further reading

CRC Press (2000). Handbook of discrete and combinatorial mathematics, (Chapter 12.2), ISBN 0-8493-
0149-1

Harold L. Dorwart (1966) The Geometry of Incidence, Prentice Hall

Last edited on 30 August 2023, at 02:17

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