Related papers: On sets with few distinct distances
Guth and Katz proved that any point set $\mathcal P$ in the plane determines $\Omega(|\mathcal P|/\log|\mathcal P|)$ distinct distances. We show that when near to this lower bound, a point set $\mathcal P$ of the form $A\times A$ must…
Every set of points $\mathcal{P}$ determines $\Omega(|\mathcal{P}| / \log |\mathcal{P}|)$ distances. A close version of this was initially conjectured by Erd\H{o}s in 1946 and rather recently proved by Guth and Katz. We show that when near…
We consider the number of distinct distances between two finite sets of points in ${\bf R}^k$, for any constant dimension $k\ge 2$, where one set $P_1$ consists of $n$ points on a line $l$, and the other set $P_2$ consists of $m$ arbitrary…
We study the structure of planar point sets that determine a small number of distinct distances. Specifically, we show that if a set P of n points determines o(n) distinct distances, then no line contains \Omega(n^{7/8}) points of P and no…
Let $S$ be a set of points in $\mathbb{R}^2$ contained in a circle and $P$ an unrestricted point set in $\mathbb{R}^2$. We prove the number of distinct distances between points in $S$ and points in $P$ is at least…
It is shown that given a set of $N$ points in the plane or on the sphere, there is a subset of size $\gtrsim N^{1/3}/\log N$ with all pairwise distances between points distinct.
A celebrated theorem due to Bannai-Bannai-Stanton says that if $A$ is a set of points in $\mathbb{R}^{d}$, which determines $s$ distinct distances, then $$|A| \leq {d+s \choose s}.$$ In this note, we give a new simple proof of this result…
Let $P$ be a set of $n$ points in the plane that determines at most $n/5$ distinct distances. We show that no line can contain more than $O(n^{43/52}{\rm polylog}(n))$ points of $P$. We also show a similar result for rectangular distances,…
We prove that if $P$ is a set of $n$ points in $\mathbb{C}^2$, then either the points in $P$ determine $\Omega(n^{1-\epsilon})$ complex distances, or $P$ is contained in a line with slope $\pm i$. If the latter occurs then each pair of…
We consider the problem of determining the number of distinct distances between two point sets in $\mathbb{R}^2$ where one point set $\mathcal{P}_1$ of size $m$ lies on a real algebraic curve of fixed degree $r$, and the other point set…
Let $p$ be an odd prime and $A \subseteq \mathbb{F}_p$ be a subset of the finite field with $p$ elements. We show that $A \times A \subseteq \mathbb{F}_p^2$ determines at least a constant multiple of $\min\{p, |A|^{3/2}\}$ distinct pinned…
We give a shorter proof of a slightly weaker version of a theorem of Nets Katz and the author. We prove that if a set of $L$ lines in $\mathbb{R}^3$ contains at most $L^{1/2}$ lines in any low degree algebraic surface, then the number of…
We prove that a well-distributed subset of R^2 can have a separated distance set only if the distance is induced by a polygon.
In this paper we develop in detail the geometric constructions that lead to many uniqueness results for the determination of polyhedral sets, typically scatterers, by a finite minimal number of measurements. We highlight how unique…
Let P_1 and P_2 be two sets of points in the plane, so that P_1 is contained in a line L_1, P_2 is contained in a line L_2, and L_1 and L_2 are neither parallel nor orthogonal. Then the number of distinct distances determined by the pairs…
A homogeneous set of $n$ points in the $d$-dimensional Euclidean space determines at least $\Omega(n^{2d/(d^2+1)} / \log^{c(d)} n)$ distinct distances for a constant $c(d)>0$. In three-space, we slightly improve our general bound and show…
We construct finite sets of real numbers that have a small difference set and strong local properties. In particular, we construct a set $A$ of $n$ real numbers such that $|A-A|=n^{\log_2 3}$ and that every subset $A'\subseteq A$ of size…
This paper considers an extremal version of the Erd\H{o}s distinct distances problem. For a point set $P \subset \mathbb R^d$, let $\Delta(P)$ denote the set of all Euclidean distances determined by $P$. Our main result is the following: if…
We show that for any large $n$, there exists a set of $n$ points in the plane with $O(n^2/\sqrt{\log n})$ distinct distances, such that any four points in the set determine at least five distinct distances. This answers (in the negative) a…
It is shown that $N$ points on a real algebraic curve of degree $n$ in $\mathbb{R}^d$ always determine $\gtrsim_{n,d}N^{1+\frac{1}{4}}$ distinct distances, unless the curve is a straight line or the closed geodesic of a flat torus. In the…