Related papers: Finite field Kakeya and Nikodym sets in three dime…

A Kakeya set contains a line in each direction. Dvir proved a lower bound on the size of any Kakeya set in a finite field using the polynomial method. We prove analogues of Dvir's result for non-degenerate conics, that is, parabolae and…

For a finite field GF(q) a Kakeya set K is a subset of GF(q)^n that contains a line in every direction. This paper derives new upper bounds on the minimum size of Kakeya sets when q is even.

A Besicovitch set in AG(n,q) is a set of points containing a line in every direction. The Kakeya problem is to determine the minimal size of such a set. We solve the Kakeya problem in the plane, and substantially improve the known bounds…

Let $\mathbb{F}$ be a finite field consisting of $q$ elements and let $n \geq 1$ be an integer. In this paper, we study the size of local Kakeya sets with respect to subsets of $\mathbb{F}^{n}$ and obtain upper and lower bounds for the…

Let $L$ be a set of lines of an affine space over a field and let $S$ be a set of points with the property that every line of $L$ is incident with at least $N$ points of $S$. Let $D$ be the set of directions of the lines of $L$ considered…

We study subsets of the $n$-dimensional vector space over the finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$, for odd $q$, which contain either a sphere for each radius or a sphere for each first coordinate of the center. We call such sets radii spherical…

A two-dimensional Besicovitch set over a finite field is a subset of the finite plane containing a line in each direction. In this paper, we conjecture a sharp lower bound for the size of such a subset and prove some results toward this…

Let $F$ be a finite field with characteristic greater than two. Define a \emph{Besicovitch set} in $F^4$ to be a set $P \subseteq F^4$ containing a line in every direction. The \emph{Kakeya conjecture} asserts that $|P| \approx |F|^4$. A…

A Kakeya set is a subset of F^n, where F is a finite field of q elements, that contains a line in every direction. In this paper we show that the size of every Kakeya set is at least C_n * q^n, where C_n depends only on n. This improves the…

Let $\mathbb{F}_q$ denote a finite field of $q$ elements. Define a set $B\subset\mathbb{F}_q^n$ to be Nikodym if for each $x\in B^{c}$, there exists a line $L$ such that $L\cap B^c=\{x\}.$ The main purpose of this note is to show that the…

A set of points $N\subseteq \mathbb{F}_q^d$ is a Nikodym set if, for any $x\in \mathbb{F}_q^d$, there is a line $\ell$ through $x$ such that $\ell\setminus\{x\}\subseteq N$. We conjecture that $|N|=q^d-O_d(q^{d/(d-1)})$ and prove it under…

The arithmetic Kakeya conjecture, formulated by Katz and Tao in 2002, is a statement about addition of finite sets. It is known to imply a form of the Kakeya conjecture, namely that the upper Minkowski dimension of a Besicovitch set in…

A $(k,m)$-Furstenberg set $S \subset \mathbb{F}_q^n$ over a finite field is a set that has at least $m$ points in common with a $k$-flat in every direction. The question of determining the smallest size of such sets is a natural…

In the finite field setting, we show that the restriction conjecture associated to any one of a large family of $d=2n+1$ dimensional quadratic surfaces implies the $n+1$ dimensional Kakeya conjecture (Dvir's theorem). This includes the case…

We study sets of $\delta$ tubes in $\mathbb{R}^3$, with the property that not too many tubes can be contained inside a common convex set $V$. We show that the union of tubes from such a set must have almost maximal volume. As a consequence,…

We prove the joints conjecture, showing that for any $N$ lines in ${\Bbb R}^3$, there are at most $O(N^{{3 \over 2}})$ points at which 3 lines intersect non-coplanarly. We also prove a conjecture of Bourgain showing that given $N^2$ lines…

The restriction and Kakeya problems in Euclidean space have received much attention in the last few decades, and are related to many problems in harmonic analysis, PDE, and number theory. In this paper we initiate the study of these…

Katz and Zahl used a planebrush argument to prove that Kakeya sets in $\mathbb{R}^4$ have Hausdorff dimension at least 3.059. In the special case when the Kakeya set is plany, their argument gives a better lower bound of 10/3. We give a…

We obtain estimates for maximal functions that arise when one studies Nikodym-type sets. We also formulate a curvature condition that allows favorable estimates for these maximal functions.

We prove that a Kakeya set in a vector space over a finite field of size $q$ always supports a probability measure whose Fourier transform is bounded by $q^{-1}$ for all non-zero frequencies. We show that this bound is sharp in all…