Fractionally Balanced Hypergraphs and Rainbow KKM Theorems

Ron Aharoni, Eli Berger, Joseph Briggs, Erel Segal-Halevi, Shira Zerbib

Abstract: A d-partite hypergraph is called fractionally balanced if there exists a non-negative, not identically zero, function on its edge set that has constant degrees in each vertex side. Using a topological version of Hall’s theorem we prove lower bounds on the matching number of such hypergraphs. These bounds yield rainbow versions of the KKM theorem for products of simplices, which in turn are used to obtain some results on multiple-cake division, and on rainbow matchings in families of d-intervals.