Improved Bounds for 3-Progressions

We prove that if $A\subset \{1,\dots,N\}$ has no nontrivial three-term arithmetic progressions, then $|A|\leq \exp(-c\log(N)^{1/6}\log\log(N)^{-1})N$ for some absolute constant $c>0$. To obtain this bound, we use an iterated variant of the sifting argument of Kelley and Meka, as well as an improved bootstrapping argument for Croot-Sisask almost-periodicity due to Bloom and Sisask.