Divergence of separated nets with respect to displacement equivalence

We introduce a hierarchy of equivalence relations on the set of separated nets of a given Euclidean space, indexed by concave increasing functions ϕ:(0, ∞)→(0, ∞). Two separated nets are called ϕ-displacement equivalent if, roughly speaking, there is a bijection between them which, for large radii R, displaces points of norm at most R by something of order at most ϕ(R). We show that the spectrum of ϕ-displacement equivalence spans from the established notion of bounded displacement equivalence, which corresponds to bounded ϕ, to the indiscrete equivalence relation, corresponding to ϕ(R)∈Ω(R), in which all separated nets are equivalent. In between the two ends of this spectrum, the notions of ϕ-displacement equivalence are shown to be pairwise distinct with respect to the asymptotic classes of ϕ(R) for R→∞. We further undertake a comparison of our notion of ϕ-displacement equivalence with previously studied relations on separated nets. Particular attention is given to the interaction of the notions of ϕ-displacement equivalence with that of bilipschitz equivalence.