English

Euclidean sets with only one distance modulo a prime ideal

Combinatorics 2025-07-08 v3 Metric Geometry

Abstract

Let XX be a finite set in the Euclidean space Rd\mathbb{R}^d. If the squared distance between any two distinct points in XX is an odd integer, then the cardinality of XX is bounded above by d+2d+2, as shown by Rosenfeld (1997) or Smith (1995). They proved that there exists a (d+2)(d+2)-point set XX in Rd\mathbb{R}^d having only odd integral squared distances if and only if d+2d+2 is congruent to 00 modulo 44. The distances can be interpreted as an element of the finite field Z/2Z\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z}. We generalize this result for a local ring (Ap,pAp)(A_\mathfrak{p},\mathfrak{p}A_\mathfrak{p}) as follows. Let KK be an algebraic number field that can be embedded into R\mathbb{R}. Fix an embedding of KK into R\mathbb{R}, and KK is interpreted as a subfield of R\mathbb{R}. Let A=OKA=O_K be the ring of integers of KK, and p\mathfrak{p} a prime ideal of OKO_K. Let (Ap,pAp)(A_\mathfrak{p},\mathfrak{p}A_\mathfrak{p}) be the local ring obtained from the localization (Ap)1A(A\setminus \mathfrak{p})^{-1} A, which is interpreted as a subring of R\mathbb{R}. If the squared distances of XRdX\subset \mathbb{R}^d are in ApA_\mathfrak{p} and each squared distance is congruent to some constant k≢0k \not\equiv 0 modulo pAp\mathfrak{p} A_\mathfrak{p}, then Xd+2|X| \leq d+2, as shown by Nozaki (2023). In this paper, we prove that there exists a set XRdX\subset \mathbb{R}^d attaining the upper bound Xd+2|X| \leq d+2 if and only if d+2d+2 is congruent to 00 modulo 44 when the finite field Ap/pApA_\mathfrak{p}/ \mathfrak{p} A_\mathfrak{p} is of characteristic 2, and d+2d+2 is congruent to 00 modulo pp when Ap/pApA_\mathfrak{p}/ \mathfrak{p} A_\mathfrak{p} is of characteristic pp odd. We also provide examples attaining this upper bound.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2303.12331,
  title  = {Euclidean sets with only one distance modulo a prime ideal},
  author = {Hiroshi Nozaki},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2303.12331},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

11 pages, no figure

R2 v1 2026-06-28T09:27:46.189Z