English

Is the space of reachable particle configurations dense?

Combinatorics 2025-07-31 v1

Abstract

Let p0,,pnp_0,\ldots,p_n be a finite sequence of points in an Euclidean space Rd\R^d. Suppose that there is a (pointlike) particle sitting at each point pip_i. In a ``legal'' move, any one of them can jump over another, landing on the other side, at exactly the same distance. Under what circumstances can we guarantee that for any ε>0\varepsilon>0 and any other sequence of points q0,,qnRdq_0,\ldots, q_n\in\R^d, there is a finite sequence of legal moves that takes the particle at pip_i to the ε\varepsilon-neighborhood of qiq_i, simultaneously for every ii? We prove that this is possible if and only if the additive group generated by the vectors p1p0,,pnp0p_1-p_0,\ldots,p_n-p_0 is dense in Rd\R^d.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2507.22471,
  title  = {Is the space of reachable particle configurations dense?},
  author = {Janos Pach and Gabor Tardos},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.22471},
  year   = {2025}
}

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12 pages, 0 figures