Friday, 11 April 2014

co.combinatorics - Minimum differences in vectors of naturals

I have run into this problem (or something similar to it) a few times now and I am wondering if the answer is known.



Given an vector $s$ of integers let $d(s)$ be the minimum difference between any two integers in $s$, that is
$$d(s) = min_{i,j in s} |i - j|.$$
For $s$ a vector of length $m$ from $lbrace 1,2,dots,nrbrace^m$ we must have $0 leq d(s) < n$.




Given $0 leq k < n$, how may such vectors have $d(s) = k$ ?




I'm more interested in the case where $n$ is much larger than $m$.



Note: If $N_k$ is the answer for $k$. Then you should have $n^m = sum_{k=0}^{n-1}N_k$

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