Covering Hypercube $mB^n$

Abstract: We generalize the problem of hyperplane coverings from the Boolean cube to the $m$-fold hypercube $mBⁿ = {0,1,\ldots,m}<sup>n$. Let $f_m(n,k)$ denote the minimum number of hyperplanes such that each point of $mB<sup>n$ is covered at least $k$ times while the origin is uncovered. We derive upper and lower bounds for $f_m(n,k)$, and further determine the exact value: $f_m(n,2) = mn + m$. To achieve this, we establish a version of Sauermann--Wigderson Combinatorial Nullstellensatz for $mB<sup>n$, which enables us to construct polynomials with prescribed vanishing multiplicities.