Integer distance sets
Algebraic and Analytic Methods in Combinatorics March 17, 2025 - March 21, 2025
Location: SLMath: Eisenbud Auditorium, Online/Virtual
Primary Mathematics Subject Classification
No Primary AMS MSC
Secondary Mathematics Subject Classification
No Secondary AMS MSC
I'll speak about joint work with Rachel Greenfeld and Marina Iliopoulou in which we address some classical questions concerning the size and structure of integer distance sets. A subset of the Euclidean plane is said to be an integer distance set if the distance between any pair of points in the set is an integer. Our main result is that any integer distance set in the plane has all but a very small number of points lying on a single line or circle. From this, we deduce a near-optimal lower bound on the diameter of any non-collinear integer distance set of size n and a strong upper bound on the size of any integer distance set in [-N,N]^2 with no three points on a line and no four points on a circle.