An inverse theorem for the Gowers U^3 norm

In an additive group (G,+), a three-dimensional corner is the four points g, g+d(1,0,0), g+d(0,1,0), g+d(0,0,1), where g is in G^3, and d is a non-zero element of G. The Ramsey number of interest is R_3(G) the maximal cardinality of a subset of G^3 that does not contain a three-dimensional corner. Furstenberg and Katznelson have shown R_3(Z_N) is little-o of N^3, and in fact the corresponding result holds in all dimensions, a result that is a far reaching extension of the Sze...

For every natural number k we prove a decomposition theorem for bounded measurable functions on compact abelian groups into a structured part, a quasi random part and a small error term. In this theorem quasi randomness is measured with the Gowers norm U(k+1) and the structured part is a bounded complexity ``nilspace-polynomial'' of degree k. This statement implies a general inverse theorem for the U(k+1) norm. (We discuss some consequences in special families of groups such ...

A key tool in recent advances in understanding arithmetic progressions and other patterns in subsets of the integers is certain norms or seminorms. One example is the norms on $\Z/N\Z$ introduced by Gowers in his proof of Szemer\'edi's Theorem, used to detect uniformity of subsets of the integers. Another example is the seminorms on bounded functions in a measure preserving system (associated to the averages in Furstenberg's proof of Szemer\'edi's Theorem) defined by the auth...

A very useful fact in additive combinatorics is that analytic expressions that can be used to count the number of structures of various kinds in subsets of Abelian groups are robust under quasirandom perturbations, and moreover that quasirandomness can often be measured by means of certain easily described norms, known as uniformity norms. However, determining which uniformity norms work for which structures turns out to be a surprisingly hard question. In [GW09a] and [GW09b,...

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.

We show that if A is a subset of Z/pZ (p a prime) of density bounded away from 0 and 1 then the A(Z/pZ)-norm (that is the l^1-norm of the Fourier transform) of the characterstic function of A is bounded below by an absolute constant times (log p)^{1/2 - \epsilon} as p tends to infinity. This improves on the exponent 1/3 in recent work of Green and Konyagin.

We introduce a new probabilistic technique for finding 'almost-periods' of convolutions of subsets of groups. This gives results similar to the Bogolyubov-type estimates established by Fourier analysis on abelian groups but without the need for a nice Fourier transform to exist. We also present applications, some of which are new even in the abelian setting. These include a probabilistic proof of Roth's theorem on three-term arithmetic progressions and a proof of a variant of...

We prove quasipolynomial bounds on the inverse theorem for the Gowers $U^{s+1}[N]$-norm. The proof is modeled after work of Green, Tao, and Ziegler and uses as a crucial input recent work of the first author regarding the equidistribution of nilsequences. In a companion paper, this result will be used to improve the bounds on Szemer\'{e}di's theorem.

Let $q$ be an odd prime power. Combining the discussion of Varnavides and a recent theorem of Ellenberg and Gijswijt, we show that a subset $A\subset{\mathbb F}_q^n$ will contain many non-trivial three-term arithmetic progressions, whenever $|A|\geq (c_q q)^n$ for some constant $c_q>0$. After the first version of our manuscript was uploaded in the arXiv, we learned from Professors Jacob Fox and Terence Tao that our result is a special case of a result of Fox and Lovasz [1, Th...

We establish quantitative bounds on the $U^k[N]$ Gowers norms of the M\"obius function $\mu$ and the von Mangoldt function $\Lambda$ for all $k$, with error terms of shape $O((\log\log N)^{-c})$. As a consequence, we obtain quantitative bounds for the number of solutions to any linear system of equations of finite complexity in the primes, with the same shape of error terms. We also obtain the first quantitative bounds on the size of sets containing no $k$-term arithmetic pro...