English

Effective Bounds for Restricted $3$-Arithmetic Progressions in $\mathbb{F}_p^n$

Combinatorics 2024-12-23 v2 Discrete Mathematics

Abstract

For a prime pp, a restricted arithmetic progression in Fpn\mathbb{F}_p^n is a triplet of vectors x,x+a,x+2ax, x+a, x+2a in which the common difference aa is a non-zero element from {0,1,2}n\{0,1,2\}^n. What is the size of the largest AFpnA\subseteq \mathbb{F}_p^n that is free of restricted arithmetic progressions? We show that the density of any such a set is at most C(logloglogn)c\frac{C}{(\log\log\log n)^c}, where c,C>0c,C>0 depend only on pp, giving the first reasonable bounds for the density of such sets. Previously, the best known bound was O(1/logn)O(1/\log^{*} n), which follows from the density Hales-Jewett theorem.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2308.06600,
  title  = {Effective Bounds for Restricted $3$-Arithmetic Progressions in $\mathbb{F}_p^n$},
  author = {Amey Bhangale and Subhash Khot and Dor Minzer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2308.06600},
  year   = {2024}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T11:54:21.389Z