Perturbation conjecture for distinct distances in strictly normed planes

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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

∥pi−pj∥<∥pk−pl∥  ⟹  ∥pi−pj∥<B∥pk−pl∥.\|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 ∥pi′−pi∥<ϵ\|p'_i-p_i\|<\epsilon, all distances between points of S′S' are distinct, and

∥pi′−pj′∥<∥pk′−pl′∥  ⟺  ∥pi−pj∥<B∥pk−pl∥.\|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.

References

Primary source

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

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