Shallow Packings, Semialgebraic Set Systems, Macbeath Regions, and Polynomial Partitioning

The packing lemma of Haussler states that given a set system (X,R) with bounded VC dimension, if every pair of sets in R have large symmetric difference, then R cannot contain too many sets. Recently it was generalized to the shallow packing lemma, applying to set systems as a function of their shallow-cell complexity. In this paper we present several new results and applications related to packings: * an optimal lower bound for shallow packings, * improved bounds on Mnets, providing a combinatorial analogue to Macbeath regions in convex geometry, * we observe that Mnets provide a general, more powerful framework from which the state-of-the-art unweighted epsilon-net results follow immediately, and * simplifying and generalizing one of the main technical tools in [Fox et al.J. of the EMS, to appear]