Subsets of vertices of the same size and the same maximum distance

For a simple connected graph $G=(V,E)$ and a subset $X$ of its vertices, let $$d^*(X) = \max\{{\rm dist}_G(x,y): x,y\in X\}$$ and let $h^*(G)$ be the largest $k$ such that there are disjoint vertex subsets $A$ and $B$ of $G$, each of size $k$ such that $d^*(A) = d^*(B).$ Let $h^*(n) = \min \{h^*(G): |V(G)|=n\}$. We prove that $h^*(n) = \lfloor (n+1)/3 \rfloor,$ for $n\geq 6.$ This solves the homometric set problem restricted to the largest distance exactly. In addition we compare $h^*(G)$ with a respective function $h_{{\rm diam}}(G)$, where $d^*(A)$ is replaced with ${\rm diam}(G[A])$

Disjoint induced subgraphs of the same order and size

For a graph $G$, let $f(G)$ be the largest integer $k$ for which there exist two vertex-disjoint induced subgraphs of $G$ each on $k$ vertices, both inducing the same number of edges. We prove that $f(G) \ge n/2 - o(n)$ for every graph $G$ on $n$ vertices. This answers a question of Caro and Yuster.Comment: 25 pages, improved presentation, fixed misprints, European Journal of Combinatoric