Related papers: Improved bounds for five-term arithmetic progressi…

We prove that every subset of $\{1,\dots, N\}$ which does not contain any solutions to the equation $x+y+z=3w$ has at most $\exp(-c(\log N)^{1/5+o(1)})N$ elements, for some $c>0$. This theorem improves upon previous estimates. Additionally,…

Let a be a real number between 0 and 1. Ernie Croot showed that the quantity \max_A #(3-term arithmetic progressions in A)/p^2, where A ranges over all subsets of Z/pZ of size at most a*p, tends to a limit as p tends to infinity through…

In this paper, we study $k$-term arithmetic progressions $N, N+d, ..., N+(k-1)d$ of powerful numbers. Under the $abc$-conjecture, we obtain $d \gg_\epsilon N^{1/2 - \epsilon}$. On the other hand, there exist infinitely many $3$-term…

We show that if $A\subset \{1,\ldots,N\}$ contains no non-trivial three-term arithmetic progressions then $\lvert A\rvert \ll N/(\log N)^{1+c}$ for some absolute constant $c>0$. In particular, this proves the first non-trivial case of a…

The Gowers U^3 norm is one of a sequence of norms used in the study of arithmetic progressions. If G is an abelian group and A is a subset of G then the U^3(G) of the characteristic function 1_A is useful in the study of progressions of…

Let $C\subseteq \{1,\ldots,k\}^n$ be such that for any $k$ distinct elements of $C$ there exists a coordinate where they all differ simultaneously. Fredman and Koml\'os studied upper and lower bounds on the largest cardinality of such a set…

Let U(N) denote the maximal length of arithmetic progressions in a random uniform subset of {0,1}^N. By an application of the Chen-Stein method, we show that U(N)- 2 log(N)/log(2) converges in law to an extreme type (asymmetric)…

For integers $m$ and $n$, we study the problem of finding good lower bounds for the size of progression-free sets in $(\mathbb{Z}_{m}^{n},+)$. Let $r_{k}(\mathbb{Z}_{m}^{n})$ denote the maximal size of a subset of $\mathbb{Z}_{m}^{n}$…

In this paper we rectify two previous results found in the literature. Our work leads to a new upper bound for the largest sum-free subset of $[1,n]$ with lowest value in $\left [\frac{n}{3},\frac{n}{2}\right ]$, and the identification of…

We prove new lower bounds on the maximum size of sets $A\subseteq \mathbb{F}_p^n$ or $A\subseteq \mathbb{Z}_m^n$ not containing three-term arithmetic progressions (consisting of three distinct points). More specifically, we prove that for…

In a recent breakthrough Kelley and Meka proved a quasipolynomial upper bound for the density of sets of integers without non-trivial three-term arithmetic progressions. We present a simple modification to their method that strengthens…

It is a well-known conjecture, sometimes attributed to Frankl, that for any family of sets which is closed under the union operation, there is some element which is contained in at least half of the sets. Gilmer was the first to prove a…

For nonnegative integers $n_2, n_3$ and $d$, let $N(n_2,n_3,d)$ denote the maximum cardinality of a code of length $n_2+n_3$, with $n_2$ binary coordinates and $n_3$ ternary coordinates (in this order) and with minimum distance at least…

We study progression-free sets in the abelian groups $G=(\mathbb{Z}_m^n,+)$. Let $r_k(\mathbb{Z}_m^n)$ denote the maximal size of a set $S \subset \mathbb{Z}_m^n$ that does not contain a proper arithmetic progression of length $k$. We give…

We show that if a subset A of {1,...,N} does not contain any solutions to the equation x+y+z=3w with the variables not all equal, then A has size at most exp(-c(log N)^{1/7}) N, where c > 0 is some absolute constant. In view of Behrend's…

We prove the inverse conjecture for the Gowers U^{s+1}[N]-norm for all s >= 3; this is new for s > 3, and the cases s<3 have also been previously established. More precisely, we establish that if f : [N] -> [-1,1] is a function with || f…

The problem of looking for subsets of the natural numbers which contain no 3-term arithmetic progressions has a rich history. Roth's theorem famously shows that any such subset cannot have positive upper density. In contrast, Rankin in 1960…

A set of positive integers $A \subset \mathbb{Z}_{> 0}$ is \emph{log-sparse} if there is an absolute constant $C$ so that for any positive integer $x$ the sequence contains at most $C$ elements in the interval $[x,2x)$. In this note we…

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

The \emph{$r$-neighbourhood complexity} of a graph $G$ is the function counting, for a given integer $k$, the largest possible number, over all vertex-subsets $A$ of size $k$, of subsets of $A$ realized as the intersection between the…