The minimum distance of sets of points and the minimum socle degree (Q640923)

Let \(\mathbb K\) be a field of characteristic zero and let \(\Gamma\) be a reduced, non-degenerate set of \(m\) points in \(\mathbb P^n_K\). Let \(\mathrm{hyp}(\Gamma)\) be the maximum number of points of \(\Gamma\) lying on a hyperplane. Define the \textit{minimum distance} of \(\Gamma\) to be \(d(\Gamma) = m - \mathrm{hyp}(\Gamma)\). The author shows that \(d(\Gamma)\) is bounded below by the smallest socle degree of an artinian reduction of \(\mathbb K[x_0,\dots,x_n]/I_\Gamma\). This generalizes two of his previous results. He then explores the sharpness of this bound. His main result here is to show that in a suitable range for \(\alpha\) and \(\beta\), the union of a set of \(\alpha\) general points on a hyperplane \(H\) and \(\beta\) points on a line not contained in \(H\) gives a sharp example, while for a different range this example is not sharp. Although this does not play a role in this paper, he remarks that the motivation for the name ``minimum distance'' is that this integer is precisely the minimum distance of a certain related linear code.