English

Reconstructing a giant component of a point set in $\mathbb{R}$

Combinatorics 2026-02-27 v1

Abstract

Let VRV \subset \mathbb{R} be a finite set with V=n|V| = n and suppose we are given each pairwise distance independently with probability pp. We show that if p=(1+ϵ)/np = (1+\epsilon)/n, for some fixed ϵ>0\epsilon >0, then we can reconstruct a subset of size Ωϵ(n)\Omega_{\epsilon}(n), up to translation and reflection, with high probability. This confirms a conjecture posed by Gir\~ao, Illingworth, Michel, Powierski, and Scott. We also study a deterministic variant proposed by Benjamini and Tzalik. We show that if we are given mm distinct pairwise distances of a point set VRV \subset \mathbb{R} with V=n|V|=n, then we can reconstruct a subset of size Ω(m/(nlogn))\Omega(m/ (n \log n)) , up to translation and reflection. Moreover, we show that this is optimal, which also disproves a conjecture posed by Benjamini and Tzalik.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.23122,
  title  = {Reconstructing a giant component of a point set in $\mathbb{R}$},
  author = {Julien Portier},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.23122},
  year   = {2026}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T10:54:04.846Z