An inverse theorem for the Gowers U^3 norm

We establish the \emph{inverse conjecture for the Gowers norm over finite fields}, which asserts (roughly speaking) that if a bounded function $f: V \to \C$ on a finite-dimensional vector space $V$ over a finite field $\F$ has large Gowers uniformity norm $\|f\|_{U^{s+1}(V)}$, then there exists a (non-classical) polynomial $P: V \to \T$ of degree at most $s$ such that $f$ correlates with the phase $e(P) = e^{2\pi i P}$. This conjecture had already been established in the "hig...

Gowers introduced the notion of uniformity norm $\|f\|_{U^k(G)}$ of a bounded function $f:G\rightarrow\mathbb{R}$ on an abelian group $G$ in order to provide a Fourier-theoretic proof of Szemeredi's Theorem, that is, that a subset of the integers of positive upper density contains arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions. Since then, Gowers norms have found a number of other uses, both within and outside of Additive Combinatorics. The $U^k$ norm is defined in terms of an oper...

Let $r_5(N)$ be the largest cardinality of a set in $\{1,\ldots,N\}$ which does not contain $5$ elements in arithmetic progression. Then there exists a constant $c\in (0,1)$ such that \[r_5(N)\ll \frac{N}{\exp((\log\log N)^{c})}.\] Our work is a consequence of recent improved bounds on the $U^4$-inverse theorem of the first author and the fact that $3$-step nilsequences may be approximated by locally cubic functions on shifted Bohr sets. This combined with the density increme...

Fix a density d in (0,1], and let F_p^n be a finite field, where we think of p fixed and n tending to infinity. Let S be any subset of F_p^n having the minimal number of three-term progressions, subject to the constraint |S| is at least dp^n. We show that S must have some structure, and that up to o(p^n) elements, it is a union of a small number of cosets of a subspace of dimension n-o(n).

We show that if $A$ is a subset of a group of prime order $p$ such that $|2A|<2.7652|A|$ and $|A|<1.25\cdot10^{-6}p$, then $A$ is contained in an arithmetic progression with at most $|2A|-|A|+1$ terms, and $2A$ contains an arithmetic progression with the same difference and at least $2|A|-1$ terms. This improves a number of previously known results.

Green used an arithmetic analogue of Szemer\'edi's celebrated regularity lemma to prove the following strengthening of Roth's theorem in vector spaces. For every $\alpha>0$, $\beta<\alpha^3$, and prime number $p$, there is a least positive integer $n_p(\alpha,\beta)$ such that if $n \geq n_p(\alpha,\beta)$, then for every subset of $\mathbb{F}_p^n$ of density at least $\alpha$ there is a nonzero $d$ for which the density of three-term arithmetic progressions with common diffe...

A famous theorem of Szemer\'edi asserts that any set of integers of positive upper density will contain arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions. In its full generality, we know of four types of arguments that can prove this theorem: the original combinatorial (and graph-theoretical) approach of Szemer\'edi, the ergodic theory approach of Furstenberg, the Fourier-analytic approach of Gowers, and the hypergraph approach of Nagle-R\"odl-Schacht-Skokan and Gowers. In this lectur...

Suppose that f : F_p^n -> [0,1] has expected value t in [p^(-n/9),1] (so, the density t can be quite low!). Furthermore, suppose that support(f) has no three-term arithmetic progressions. Then, we develop non-trivial lower bounds for f_j, which is the jth largest Fourier coefficient of f. This result is similar in spirit to that appearing in an earlier paper [1] by the author; however, in that paper the focus was on the ``small'' Fourier coefficients, whereas here the focus...

This paper is mainly concerned with sets which do not contain four-term arithmetic progressions, but are still very rich in three term arithmetic progressions, in the sense that all sufficiently large subsets contain at least one such progression. We prove that there exists a positive constant $c$ and a set $A \subset \mathbb F_q^n$ which does not contain a four-term arithmetic progression, with the property that for every subset $A' \subset A$ with $|A'| \geq |A|^{1-c}$, $A'...

We establish a correspondence between inverse sumset theorems (which can be viewed as classifications of approximate (abelian) groups) and inverse theorems for the Gowers norms (which can be viewed as classifications of approximate polynomials). In particular, we show that the inverse sumset theorems of Freiman type are equivalent to the known inverse results for the Gowers U^3 norms, and moreover that the conjectured polynomial strengthening of the former is also equivalent ...