Perturbation conjecture for distinct distances in strictly normed planes

From papers

Let M2\mathbb{M}^2 be a strictly normed plane and let SS be a finite set of nn points. Label its points as S={p1,p2,,pn}S=\{p_1,p_2,\ldots,p_n\}, and let <B<_B be an ordering of the pairwise distances such that

pipj<pkpl    pipj<Bpkpl.\|p_i-p_j\|<\|p_k-p_l\|\implies \|p_i-p_j\|<_B\|p_k-p_l\|.

Perturbation conjecture. For every ϵ>0\epsilon>0, there is a set S={p1,p2,,pn}S'=\{p'_1,p'_2,\ldots,p'_n\} in bijective correspondence with SS such that each corresponding pair satisfies pipi<ϵ\|p'_i-p_i\|<\epsilon, all distances between points of SS' are distinct, and

pipj<pkpl    pipj<Bpkpl.\|p'_i-p'_j\|<\|p'_k-p'_l\|\iff\|p_i-p_j\|<_B\|p_k-p_l\|.

Such a perturbation would allow the maximum-spanning-tree algorithm to be applied directly to point sets with equal distances, while preserving every strict comparison already present among the original distances.

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Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Javier Alonso and Pedro Martín, “Maximum spanning trees in normed planes”, arXiv:2601.13779 (2026).

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