Covering triangular grids with multiplicity

Abstract

Motivated by classical work of Alon and F\"uredi, we introduce and address the following problem: determine the minimum number of affine hyperplanes in $\mathbb{R}^d$ needed to cover every point of the triangular grid $T_d(n) := \{(x_1,\dots,x_d)\in\mathbb{Z}_{\ge 0}^d\mid x_1+\dots+x_d\le n-1\}$ at least $k$ times. For $d = 2$, we solve the problem exactly for $k \leq 4$, and obtain a partial solution for $k > 4$. We also obtain an asymptotic formula (in $n$) for all $d \geq k - 2$. The proofs rely on combinatorial arguments and linear programming.