A note on the distinct distances problem over finite fields

Abstract

We study a finite-field analogue of the Erd\H{o}s distinct distances problem under the Hamming metric. For a set \(S\subseteq \mathbb{F}_q^n\) let $\Delta(S)$ denote the set of Hamming distances determined by \(S\). We prove the lower bound \[ |\Delta(S)| \;\ge\; \frac{\log |S|}{2\log(2nq)}, \] and show this bound is tight when \(|S|=O(\text{poly}(n))\), where the constant of proportionality depends only on $q$. We then also study the problem of finding a large \emph{rainbow set}, that is, a subset \(S\subseteq \mathbb{F}_q^n\) for which all \(\binom{|S|}{2}\) pairwise Hamming distances spanned by $S$ are distinct. In contrast to the Euclidean setting, we show that a set with many distinct distances does not imply the existence of a large rainbow set, by giving an explicit construction. Nevertheless, we establish the existence of large rainbow sets, and prove that every large set in \(\mathbb{F}_q^n\) necessarily contains a non-trivial rainbow subset.