An extremal result on convex lattice polygons

AbstractThe diameter of a convex set C is the length of the longest segment in C, and the local diameter at a point p is the length of the longest segment which contains p. It is easy to see that the local diameter at any point equals at least half of the diameter of C.This paper looks at the analogous question in a discrete setting; namely we look at convex lattice polygons in the plane. The analogue of Euclidean diameter is lattice diameter, defined as the maximal number of collinear points from a figure. In this setting, lattice diameter and local lattice diameter need not be related. However, for figures of a certain size, the local lattice diameter at any point must equal at least ⌊(n − 2)/2⌋, where n is the lattice diameter of the figure. The exact minimal size for which this result holds is determined, as a special case of an exact combinatorial formula