Families of modular arithmetic progressions with an interval of distance multiplicities

Abstract: Given a family

m a t h c a l F = A_{1}, d o t s, A_{s}

of subsets of

m a t h b b Z_{n}

, define

D e l t a m a t h c a l F

to be the multiset of all (cyclic) distances dist

(x, y)

, where

x, y s u b s e t A_{i}

,

x e q y

, for some

i = 1, d o t s, s

. Taking inspiration from a Euclidean distance problem of ErdH{o}s, we say that

m a t h c a l F

is ErdH{o}s-deep if the multiplicities of distances that occur in

D e l t a m a t h c a l F

are precisely

1, 2, d o t s, k - 1

for some integer

k

. In the case

s = 1

, it is known that a modular arithmetic progression in

m a t h b b Z_{n}

achieves this property (under mild conditions); conversely, APs are the only such sets, except for one sporadic case when

n = 6

. Here, we consider in detail the case

s = 2

. In particular, we classify ErdH{o}s-deep pairs

A_{1}, A_{2}

when each

A_{i}

is an arithmetic progression in

m a t h b b Z_{n}

. We also give a construction of a much wider class of ErdH{o}s-deep families

A_{1}, d o t s, A_{s}

when

s

is a square integer.

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