Polychromatic coloring for half-planes

We prove that for every integer k, every finite set of points in the plane can be k-colored so that every half-plane that contains at least 2 k − 1 points, also contains at least one point from every color class. We also show that the bound 2 k − 1 is best possible. This improves the best previously known lower and upper bounds of 4 3 k and 4 k − 1 respectively. We also show that every finite set of half-planes can be k-colored so that if a point p belongs to a subset H p of at least 3 k − 2 of the half-planes then H p contains a half-plane from every color class. This improves the best previously known upper bound of 8 k − 3 . Another corollary of our first result is a new proof of the existence of small size ϵ-nets for points in the plane with respect to half-planes.