Lattice embeddings of planar point sets (Q331380): Difference between revisions

Let \(\mathcal{M}\) be a non-collinear point set in the complex plane with \(|\mathcal{M}| \geq 3\) and such that for any two points \(\alpha, \beta \in \mathcal{M}\) we have \(|\alpha - \beta |^{2} \in \mathbb{Z}\). Since the norm of a complex number is the square of its length, we call \(\mathcal{M}\) an integer norm point set. Let \(T\) be a triangle in \(\mathcal{M}\) with side lengths \((a,b,c)\) -- it is assumed that all triangles are non-degenerate. By Heron's formulae one has \[ \mathrm{area }A = \frac{1}{4}\sqrt{ (a+b+c)(a+b-c)(a-b+c)(-a+b+c)}. \] Since the squares of the edge lengths of \(T\) are all integers, the area \(A\) will be of the form \(\frac{m}{4}\sqrt{D}\), where \(m \in \mathbb{Z}\) and \(D\) is a positive square-free integer. This integer \(D\) is called the \textit{characteristic} of \(T\). The main goal of the present paper is to provide a characterization which could allow to decide whether an integer norm point set \(\mathcal{M}\) can be embedded into \(\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{-D})\) or its ring of integers \(\mathcal{O}_{-D}\). The main result of the paper can be formulated as follows. Main Result. Let \(\mathcal{M}\) be an integer norm point set. Let \(D\) be the characteristic of any non-degenerate triangle \(T\) in \(\mathcal{M}\). If at least one distance \(|\alpha - \beta| \in \mathbb{Z}\), and if the square of every ideal in the ring of integers \(\mathcal{O}_{-D}\) in \(\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{-D})\) is principal, then \(\mathcal{M}\) embeds in \(\mathcal{O}_{-D}\).