March 3, 2004
In this paper we prove: If 0 < d < 1, and p is a sufficiently large prime, then if S is a subset of Z/pZ having the least number of three-term arithmetic progressions among all subsets of Z/pZ having at least dp elements, then S has an arithmetic progression of length at least log^{1/4+o(1)} x.
November 19, 2016
Let $\mathbb{F}_q$ be a finite field of order $q$, where $q$ is large odd prime power. In this paper, we improve some recent results on the additive energy of the distance set, and on sumsets of the distance set due to Shparlinski (2016). More precisely, we prove that for $\mathcal{E}\subseteq \mathbb{F}_q^d$, if $d=2$ and $q^{1+\frac{1}{4k-1}}=o(|\mathcal{E}|)$ then we have $|k\Delta_{\mathbb{F}_q}(\mathcal{E})|=(1-o(1))q$; if $d\ge 3$ and $q^{\frac{d}{2}+\frac{1}{2k}}=o(|\m...
May 7, 2012
Let p > 4 be a prime. We show that the largest subset of F_p^n with no 4-term arithmetic progressions has cardinality << N(log N)^{-c}, where c = 2^{-22} and N := p^n. A result of this type was claimed in a previous paper by the authors and published in Proc. London Math. Society. Unfortunately the proof had a gap, and we issue an erratum for that paper here. Our new argument is different and significantly shorter. In fact we prove a stronger result, which can be viewed as a ...
August 19, 2020
For $ E\subset \mathbb{F}_q^d$, let $\Delta(E)$ denote the distance set determined by pairs of points in $E$. By using additive energies of sets on a paraboloid, Koh, Pham, Shen, and Vinh (2020) proved that if $E,F\subset \mathbb{F}_q^d $ are subsets with $|E||F|\gg q^{d+\frac{1}{3}}$ then $|\Delta(E)+\Delta(F)|> q/2$. They also proved that the threshold $q^{d+\frac{1}{3}}$ is sharp when $|E|=|F|$. In this paper, we provide an improvement of this result in the unbalanced case...
August 10, 2015
We show that any subset of the natural numbers with positive logarithmic Banach density contains a set that is within a factor of two of a geometric progression, improving the bound on a previous result of the authors. Density conditions on subsets of the natural numbers that imply the existence of approximate powers of arithmetic progressions are developed and explored.
March 17, 2021
We generalise and improve some recent bounds for additive energies of modular roots. Our arguments use a variety of techniques, including those from additive combinatorics, algebraic number theory and the geometry of numbers. We give applications of these results to new bounds on correlations between {\it Sali{\'e}} sums and to a new equidistribution estimate for the set of modular roots of primes.
July 18, 2014
We study the relations between several notions of dimension for an additive set, some of which are well-known and some of which are more recent, appearing for instance in work of Schoen and Shkredov. We obtain bounds for the ratios between these dimensions by improving an inequality of Lev and Yuster, and we show that these bounds are asymptotically sharp, using in particular the existence of large dissociated subsets of $\{0,1\}^n\subset \mathbb{Z}^n$.
May 26, 2006
Let A be a subset of Z / NZ, and let R be the set of large Fourier coefficients of A. Properties of R have been studied in works of M.-C. Chang and B. Green. Our result is the following : the number of quadruples (r_1, r_2, r_3, r_4) \in R^4 such that r_1 + r_2 = r_3 + r_4 is at least |R|^{2+\epsilon}, \epsilon>0. This statement shows that the set R is highly structured. We also discuss some of the generalizations and applications of our result.
March 28, 2005
Let A \subseteq [1,..,N]^2 be a set of cardinality at least N^2/(log log N)^c, where c>0 is an absolute constant. We prove that A contains a triple {(k,m), (k+d,m), (k,m+d)}, where d>0. This theorem is a two-dimensional generalization of Szemeredi's theorem on arithmetic progression.
February 9, 2021
Let $AP_k=\{a,a+d,\ldots,a+(k-1)d\}$ be an arithmetic progression. For $\epsilon>0$ we call a set $AP_k(\epsilon)=\{x_0,\ldots,x_{k-1}\}$ an $\epsilon$-approximate arithmetic progression if for some $a$ and $d$, $|x_i-(a+id)|<\epsilon d$ holds for all $i\in\{0,1\ldots,k-1\}$. Complementing earlier results of Dumitrescu, in this paper we study numerical aspects of Van der Waerden, Szemeredi and Furstenberg-Katznelson like results in which arithmetic progressions and their high...