English

The Szemer\'edi-Trotter theorem over arbitrary field of characteristic zero

Combinatorics 2025-10-20 v2

Abstract

Let P\mathcal{P} be a set of mm points and L\mathcal{L} a set of nn lines in K2K^2, where KK is a field with char(K)=0(K)=0. We prove the incidence bound I(P,L)=O(m2/3n2/3+m+n).\mathcal{I}(\mathcal{P},\mathcal{L})=O(m^{2/3}n^{2/3}+m+n). Moreover, this bound is sharp and cannot be improved. This resolves the Szemer\'edi-Trotter incidence problem for arbitrary field of characteristic zero. The key tool of our proof is the Baby Lefschetz principle, which allows us to reduce the problem to the complex case. Based on this observation, we further derive several related results over KK, including Beck's theorem, the Erd\H{o}s-Szemer\'edi sum-product estimate, and incidence theorems involving more general algebraic objects.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2509.02823,
  title  = {The Szemer\'edi-Trotter theorem over arbitrary field of characteristic zero},
  author = {Jiahe Shen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.02823},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

We have updated the sum-product lower bound to the current best record and made several minor corrections. Comments are welcome