English

On the Erd\H{o}s distance problem

Metric Geometry 2026-05-07 v10 Combinatorics Number Theory

Abstract

In this paper, using the compression method, we recover the lower bound for the Erd\H{o}s unit distance problem and provide an alternative proof to the distinct distance conjecture. In particular, in Rk\mathbb{R}^k for all k2k\geq 2, we have \begin{align} \#\bigg\{(\vec{x}_t,\vec{x_j})\in \mathbb{E}\subset\mathbb{R}^k~:~||\vec{x_j}-\vec{x_t}||=1,~1\leq t,j\leq n\bigg\}\geq C\frac{\sqrt{k}}{2}n^{1+o(1)}\nonumber \end{align} for some C>0C>0. We also show that \begin{align} \# \bigg\{d_j:d_j=||\vec{x_s}-\vec{y_t}||,~d_j\neq d_i,~1\leq s,t\leq n\bigg\}\geq D\frac{\sqrt{k}}{2}n^{\frac{2}{k}-o(1)}\nonumber \end{align} for some D>0D>0. These lower bounds generalize the lower bounds of the Erd\H{o}s unit distance and the distinct distance problem to higher dimensions.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2002.00502,
  title  = {On the Erd\H{o}s distance problem},
  author = {Theophilus Agama},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2002.00502},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

11 pages; the paper has been reformatted and the introduction greatly expanded; the ideas remain unchanged; arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2106.15621, arXiv:1912.08075

R2 v1 2026-06-23T13:28:27.950Z