Related papers: Sarkozy's theorem in function fields
S\'ark\"ozy's theorem states that dense sets of integers must contain two elements whose difference is a $k^{th}$ power. Following the polynomial method breakthrough of Croot, Lev, and Pach, Green proved a strong quantitative version of…
In this paper, we strengthen a result by Green about an analogue of Sarkozy's theorem in the setting of polynomial rings $\mathbb{F}_q[x]$. In the integer setting, for a given polynomial $F \in \mathbb{Z}[x]$ with constant term zero, (a…
We define a necessary and sufficient condition on a polynomial $h\in \mathbb{Z}[x]$ to guarantee that every set of natural numbers of positive upper density contains a nonzero difference of the form $h(p)$ for some prime $p$. Moreover, we…
We prove a quantitative version of the Polynomial Szemeredi Theorem for difference sets. This result is achieved by first establishing a higher dimensional analogue of a theorem of Sarkozy (the simplest non-trivial case of the Polynomial…
We introduce the notion of intersective polynomials having coefficients in the ring of integers $\mathscr{O}_K$ of a number field $K$, and define a notion of upper density of subsets of $\mathscr{O}_K$. We prove that given any intersective…
Fix a positive prime power $q$, and let $\mathbb{F}_q[t]$ be the ring of polynomials over the finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$. Suppose $A \subseteq \{f \in \mathbb{F}_q[t]\colon\text{deg}~ f \le N\}$ contains no pair of elements whose…
It is a striking and elegant fact (proved independently by Furstenberg and Sarkozy) that in any subset of the natural numbers of positive upper density there necessarily exist two distinct elements whose difference is given by a perfect…
Let $k$ be a Brauer field, that is, a field over which every diagonal form in sufficiently many variables has a nonzero solution; for instance, $k$ could be an imaginary quadratic number field. Brauer proved that if $f_1, \ldots, f_r$ are…
For a base $b\geq 2$ and a set of digits $\mathcal{A}\subset \{0,...,b-1\}$, let $\mathcal{P}$ denote the set of prime numbers with digits restricted to $\mathcal{A}$, when written in base-$b$. We prove that if $A\subset \mathbb{N}$ has…
We show that with high probability a random set of size $\Theta(n^{1-1/k})$ of $\{1,...,n\}$ contains two elements $a$ and $a+d^k$, where $d$ is a positive integer. As a consequence, we prove an analogue of S\'ark\"ozy-F\"urstenberg's…
We make explicit Bombieri's refinement of Gallagher's log-free "large sieve density estimate near $\sigma = 1$" for Dirichlet $L$-functions. We use this estimate and recent work of Green to prove that if $N\geq 2$ is an integer,…
Green showed that, conditional on GRH, a subset $A \subseteq [N]$ with $\mid A \mid \gg_{\epsilon} N^{\frac{11}{12}+\epsilon}$ must contain two elements whose difference is $p-1$ for $p$ a prime. We prove an analogous unconditional result…
For $k$ a positive integer let $S_k(n) = 1^k + 2^k + \cdots + n^k$, i.e., $S_k(n)$ is the sum of the first $k$-th powers. Faulhaber conjectured (later proved by Jacobi) that for $k$ odd, $S_k(n)$ could be written as a polynomial of…
We show that for every subset $E$ of positive density in the set of integer square-matrices with zero traces, there exists an integer $k \geq 1$ such that the set of characteristic polynomials of matrices in $E-E$ contains the set of…
We establish upper bounds on the size of the largest subset of $\{1,2,\dots,N\}$ lacking nonzero differences of the form $h(p_1,\dots,p_{\ell})$, where $h\in \mathbb{Z}[x_1,\dots,x_{\ell}]$ is a fixed polynomial satisfying appropriate…
We prove new combinatorial results about polynomial configurations in large subsets of finite fields. Bergelson--Leibman--McCutcheon (2005) showed that for any polynomial $P(x) \in \mathbb{Z}[x]$ with $P(0) = 0$, if $A \subseteq…
We give an elementary proof of an analogue of Fej\'er's theorem in weighted Dirichlet spaces with superharmonic weights. This provides a simple way of seeing that polynomials are dense in such spaces.
Let k>1 be an integer and let p be a prime. We show that if $p^a\le k<2p^a$ or $k=p^aq+1$ (with 2q<p) for some a=1,2,..., then the set {\binom{n}{k}: n=0,1,2,...} is dense in the ring Z_p of p-adic integers, i.e., it contains a complete…
Let $k \geq 2$ be an integer and $\mathbb F_q$ be a finite field with $q$ elements. We prove several results on the distribution in short intervals of polynomials in $\mathbb F_q[x]$ that are not divisible by the $k$th power of any…
We prove that all polynomials in several variables can be decomposed as the sums of $k$th powers: $P(x_1,...,x_n) = Q_1(x_1,...,x_n)^k+...+ Q_s(x_1,...,x_n)^k$, provided that elements of the base field are themselves sums of $k$th powers.…