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Group Action Approaches in Erdos Quotient Set Problem

Combinatorics 2024-02-28 v1

Abstract

Let Fq\mathbb{F}_q denote the finite field of qq elements. For EFqdE \subset \mathbb{F}_q^d, denote the distance set Δ(E)={xy2:=(x1y1)2++(xdyd)2:(x,y)E2}\Delta(E)= \{\|x-y\|^2:=(x_1-y_1)^2+ \cdots + (x_d-y_d)^2 : (x,y)\in E^2 \}. The Erdos quotient set problem was introduced in \cite{Iosevich_2019} where it was shown that for even d2d\geq2 that if EFq2|E| \subset \mathbb{F}_q^2 such that E>>qd/2|E| >> q^{d/2}, then Δ(E)Δ(E):={st:s,tΔ(E),t0}=Fqd\frac{\Delta(E)}{\Delta(E)}:= \{\frac{s}{t}:s,t \in \Delta(E), t\not=0\} =\mathbb{F}_q^d. The proof of the latter result is quite sophisticated and in \cite{pham2023group}, a simple proof using a group-action approach was obtained for the case of q3mod4q \equiv 3 \mod 4 when d=2d=2. In the q3mod4q \equiv 3 \mod 4 setting, for each r(Fq)2r \in (\mathbb{F}_q)^2, \cite{pham2023group} showed if EFqE \subset \mathbb{F}_q, then V(r):=#{(a,b,c,d)E2:ab2cd2=r}>>E4qV(r):= \# \left\{ (a,b,c,d) \in E^2: \frac{\|a-b\|^2}{\|c-d\|^2} = r \right\} >> \frac{|E|^4}{q}. In this work we use group action techniques in the q3mod4q \equiv 3 \mod 4 setting, for d=2d=2 and improve the results of \cite{pham2023group} by removing the assumption on r(Fq)2r \in (\mathbb{F}_q)^2. Specifically we show if d=2d=2 and q3mod4q \equiv 3 \mod 4, then for each rFqr \in \mathbb{F}_q^*,V(r)E42qV(r)\geq \frac{|E|^4}{2q}if E2q|E|\geq \sqrt{2}q for all rFqr \in \mathbb{F}_q. Finally, we improve the main result of \cite{bhowmik2023near} using our proof techniques from our quotient set results.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2402.17141,
  title  = {Group Action Approaches in Erdos Quotient Set Problem},
  author = {Will Burstein},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2402.17141},
  year   = {2024}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T15:01:19.399Z