Related papers: Improved bound in Roth's theorem on arithmetic pro…

We prove that a subset $A\subseteq [1, N]$ with \[\sum_{n\in A}\frac{1}{n} \ge (\log N)^{4/5 + o(1)}\] contains a subset $B$ such that \[\sum_{n\in B} \frac{1}{n} = 1.\] Our techniques refine those of Croot and of Bloom. Using our…

We construct subsets of {1,...,N} of cardinality at least N exp(-C(log N)^{1/(k+1)}) which do not contain arithmetic progressions of length 2^k+1. This extends a result of Behrend (1946) concerning sets which do not contain aritmetic…

We show that there exists $c>0$ such that any subset of $\{1, \dots, N\}$ of density at least $(\log\log{N})^{-c}$ contains a nontrivial progression of the form $x,x+y,x+y^2$. This is the first quantitatively effective version of the…

This is the text accompanying my Bourbaki seminar on the work of Bloom and Sisask, Croot, Lev, and Pach, and Ellenberg and Gijswijt.

We prove that for any function $f$ satisfying certain mild conditions and any Cantor set $K$ with Newhouse thickness greater than $1$, there exists $x\in K$ and $t>0$ such that \[ \{x-t,x,x+f(t)\}\subset K. \] This is an extension of…

We prove that the size of the product set of any finite arithmetic progression $\mathcal{A}\subset \mathbb{Z}$ satisfies \[|\mathcal A \cdot \mathcal A| \ge \frac{|\mathcal A|^2}{(\log |\mathcal A|)^{2\theta +o(1)} } ,\] where…

We show that there is a red-blue colouring of $[N]$ with no blue 3-term arithmetic progression and no red arithmetic progression of length $e^{C(\log N)^{3/4}(\log \log N)^{1/4}}$. Consequently, the two-colour van der Waerden number…

We prove a generalization of Frieman's $3k-3$ theorem for the sumset $$ \Sigma^{l}(A_1,\ldots,A_k)=\{a_{j_{1}}+\cdots+a_{j_{l}}:\,1\leq j_{1}<\cdots<j_{l}\leq k,\ a_{j_{s}}\in A_{j_{s}}\text{ for all }s\}. $$

Let A \subseteq [1,..,N]^2 be a set of cardinality at least N^2/(log log N)^c, where c>0 is an absolute constant. We prove that A contains a triple {(k,m), (k+d,m), (k,m+d)}, where d>0. This theorem is a two-dimensional generalization of…

We obtain a new lower bound on the largest Sidon subset of an arbitrary finite set of integers. If $H(n)$ denotes the minimum, over all $n$-element subsets of $\mathbb Z$, of the largest Sidon subset they contain, we prove that $H(n)…

We prove new lower bounds on the maximum size of subsets $A\subseteq \{1,\dots,N\}$ or $A\subseteq \mathbb{F}_p^n$ not containing three-term arithmetic progressions. In the setting of $\{1,\dots,N\}$, this is the first improvement upon a…

We prove results about the L^p-almost-periodicity of convolutions. One of these follows from a simple but rather general lemma about approximating a sum of functions in L^p, and gives a very short proof of a theorem of Green that if A and B…

We show that sets of integers lacking the configuration $x$, $x+y$, $x+y^2$ have at most polylogarithmic density.

In this paper, we establish some nontrivial and effective upper bounds for the least common multiple of consecutive terms of a finite arithmetic progression. Precisely, we prove that for any two coprime positive integers $a$ and $b$, with…

We show an improved upper estimate for van der Waerden number $W(3,k):$ there is an absolute constant $c>0$ such that if $\{1,\dots,N\}=X\cup Y$ is a partition such that $X$ does not contain any arithmetic progression of length $3$ and $Y$…

Wall's theorem on arithmetic progressions says that if $0.a_1a_2a_3\dots$ is normal, then for any $k,\ell\in \mathbb{N}$, $0.a_ka_{k+\ell}a_{k+2\ell}\dots$ is also normal. We examine a converse statement and show that if…

Suppose that f : F_p^n -> [0,1] has expected value t in [p^(-n/9),1] (so, the density t can be quite low!). Furthermore, suppose that support(f) has no three-term arithmetic progressions. Then, we develop non-trivial lower bounds for f_j,…

We consider a monotone submodular maximization problem whose constraint is described by a logic formula on a graph. Formally, we prove the following three `algorithmic metatheorems.' (1) If the constraint is specified by a monadic…

Let $E\subset \mathbb{R}$ be a closed set of Hausdorff dimension $\alpha\in (0, 1)$. Let $P: \mathbb{R}\to \mathbb{R}$ be a polynomial without a constant term whose degree is bigger than one. We prove that if $E$ supports a probability…

We show that infinitely many three-term arithmetic progressions $N, N+d, N+2d$ of powerful numbers exist with $d = 2\sqrt{N} + 1$. We further conjecture that infinitely many of these progressions consist of three consecutive terms in the…