English

A uniform set with fewer than expected arithmetic progressions of length 4

Combinatorics 2020-07-28 v2

Abstract

An example is presented of a subset AA of ZN\mathbb Z_N of density α\alpha such that the largest non-trivial Fourier coefficient of the characteristic function of AA is very small, but the probability that a random arithmetic progression (mod NN) of length 4 lies in AA is significantly smaller than α4\alpha^4.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2004.07598,
  title  = {A uniform set with fewer than expected arithmetic progressions of length 4},
  author = {W. T. Gowers},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.07598},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

This preprint was written well over a decade ago and has been known about by experts but not made publicly available. I apologize for this and am now remedying the situation. Revised version updates the notation, corrects minor errors (pointed out by referee), and adds one or two references

R2 v1 2026-06-23T14:53:36.750Z