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Research notes on every problem, and a library of the papers behind them. Built from the open erdos repository.

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Claim. For every odd d≥5d\ge5, with p=⌊d/2⌋p=\lfloor d/2\rfloor, there are constants c1(d),c2(d)>0c_1(d),c_2(d)>0 such that

p−12pn2+c1n4/3≤fd(n)≤p−12pn2+c2n4/3\frac{p-1}{2p}n^2+c_1n^{4/3}\le f_d(n)\le\frac{p-1}{2p}n^2+c_2n^{4/3}

for all large nn, in the notation of Problem 1085. The leading term is Lenz's, and the second-order term has exact order n4/3n^{4/3}.

Covers. The estimate of fd(n)f_d(n) for every odd d≥5d\ge5: the leading term exactly and the second-order term up to constant factors. The constants c1(d)c_1(d), c2(d)c_2(d) and the exact value of fd(n)f_d(n) are not determined; Swanepoel's structure theorem, on its own claim page in this folder, reduces the exact value for large nn to the maximum number of unit distances among nn points on a two-sphere, which is open. Nothing is claimed for even dd or for d≤3d\le3.

Depends on. No page of this wiki.

The argument. As Swanepoel's introduction [Sw09] summarizes it, the lower bound improves Lenz's construction in odd dimension by replacing one circle by a two-sphere of radius 1/21/\sqrt2 in a three-dimensional subspace orthogonal to the other planes, with points placed on the sphere so that the unit distance occurs at least cn4/3cn^{4/3} times, a construction of Erdős, Hickerson and Pach; the upper bound combines a stability form of the Erdős–Stone theorem with the O(n4/3)O(n^{4/3}) bound for unit distances among nn points on a two-sphere.

Acceptance. Refereed: P. Erdős and J. Pach, Variations on the theme of repeated distances, Combinatorica 10 (1990), no. 3, 261–269. Not reviewed: the site's remarks credit this result to the paper, but the site labels the problem OPEN, so the remark is not an acceptance of the problem or of a part. The statement is taken from the site's remarks and from the introduction of [Sw09]; the paper has no library card.