English

On a generalization of the Hadwiger-Nelson problem

Combinatorics 2016-01-13 v4 Group Theory

Abstract

For a field FF and a quadratic form QQ defined on an nn-dimensional vector space VV over FF, let QGQ\mathrm{QG}_Q, called the quadratic graph associated to QQ, be the graph with the vertex set VV where vertices u,wVu,w \in V form an edge if and only if Q(vw)=1Q(v-w)=1. Quadratic graphs can be viewed as natural generalizations of the unit-distance graph featuring in the famous Hadwiger-Nelson problem. In the present paper, we will prove that for a local field FF of characteristic zero, the Borel chromatic number of QGQ\mathrm{QG}_Q is infinite if and only if QQ represents zero non-trivially over FF. The proof employs a recent spectral bound for the Borel chromatic number of Cayley graphs, combined with an analysis of certain oscillatory integrals over local fields. As an application, we will also answer a variant of question 525 proposed in the 22nd British Combinatorics Conference 2009.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1507.05300,
  title  = {On a generalization of the Hadwiger-Nelson problem},
  author = {Mohammad Bardestani and Keivan Mallahi-Karai},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1507.05300},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

This is the final version. Accepted in Israel Journal of Mathematics

R2 v1 2026-06-22T10:14:37.811Z