Finite point configurations in the plane, rigidity and Erdos problems

Abstract

For a finite point set $E\subset {\mathbb{R}}^d$ and a connected graph $G$ on $k+1$ vertices, we define a $G$-framework to be a collection of $k+1$ points in E such that the distance between a pair of points is specified if the corresponding vertices of $G$ are connected by an edge. We consider two frameworks the same if the specified edge-distances are the same. We find tight bounds on such distinct-distance drawings for rigid graphs in the plane, deploying the celebrated result of Guth and Katz. We introduce a congruence relation on the wider set of graphs, which behaves nicely in both the real-discrete and continuous settings. We provide a sharp bound on the number of such congruence classes. We then make a conjecture that the tight bound on rigid graphs should apply to all graphs. This appears to be a hard problem even in the case of the non-rigid 2-chain. However we provide evidence to support the conjecture by demonstrating that if the Erd\H os pinned-distance conjecture holds in dimension $d$ then the result for all graphs in dimension $d$ follows.

arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1708.05919