Related papers: Large point-line matchings and small Nikodym sets
For any fixed dimension $d \geq 3$ we construct a Nikodym set in $F_q^d$ of cardinality $q^d - (\frac{d-2}{\log 2} +1+o(1)) q^{d-1} \log q$ in the limit $q \to \infty$, when $q$ is an odd prime power. This improves upon the naive random…
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…
We give improved lower bounds on the size of Kakeya and Nikodym sets over $\mathbb{F}_q^3$. We also propose a natural conjecture on the minimum number of points in the union of a not-too-flat set of lines in $\mathbb{F}_q^3$, and show that…
We consider the number \bar N(q) of points in the projective complement of graph hypersurfaces over \F_q and show that the smallest graphs with non-polynomial \bar N(q) have 14 edges. We give six examples which fall into two classes. One…
We explore a paradigm which ties together seemingly disparate areas in number theory, additive combinatorics, and geometric combinatorics including the classical Waring problem, the Furstenberg-S\'{a}rk\"{o}zy theorem on squares in sets of…
We show that if $E \subset \mathbb{F}_q^d$, the $d$-dimensional vector space over the finite field with $q$ elements, and $|E| \geq \rho q^d$, where $ q^{-\frac{1}{2}}\ll \rho \leq 1$, then $E$ contains an isometric copy of at least $c…
Let $A$ and $B$ be sets in a finite vector space. In this paper, we study the magnitude of the set $A\cap f(B)$, where $f$ runs through a set of transformations. More precisely, we will focus on the cases that the set of transformations is…
We use an entropy based method to study two graph maximization problems. We upper bound the number of matchings of fixed size $\ell$ in a $d$-regular graph on $N$ vertices. For $\frac{2\ell}{N}$ bounded away from 0 and 1, the logarithm of…
Let $G$ be a graph with a perfect matching. Denote by $f(G)$ the minimum size of a matching in $G$ which is uniquely extendable to a perfect matching in $G$. Diwan (2019) proved by linear algebra that for $d$-hypercube $Q_d$ ($d\geq 2)$,…
We give a lower bound for the size of a subset of $\mathbb F_q^n$ containing a rich k-plane in every direction, a k-plane Furstenberg set. The chief novelty of our method is that we use arguments on non-reduced subschemes and flat families…
We describe two constructions of (very) dense graphs which are edge disjoint unions of large {\em induced} matchings. The first construction exhibits graphs on $N$ vertices with ${N \choose 2}-o(N^2)$ edges, which can be decomposed into…
We establish improved finite field Szemeredi-Trotter and Beck type theorems. First we show that if P and L are a set of points and lines respectively in the plane F_p^2, with |P|,|L| \leq N and N<p, then there are at most C_1…
Let $\mathbb{F}_q$ be a finite field of $q$ elements where $q$ is a large odd prime power and $Q =a_1 x_1^{c_1}+...+a_dx_d^{c_d}\in \mathbb{F}_q[x_1,...,x_d]$, where $2\le c_i\le N$, $\gcd(c_i,q)=1$, and $a_i\in \mathbb{F}_q$ for all $1\le…
In this paper, we construct explicit families of polynomials $P \in \mathbb{F}_q[x_1,\dots,x_n]$ with large root sets which have restricted intersections with affine lines. We use these sets to make substantial progress on a number of…
We study number theoretic properties of the map $x \mapsto x^{x} \mod{p}$, where $x \in \{1,2,\ldots,p-1\}$, and improve on some recent upper bounds, due to Kurlberg, Luca, and Shparlinski, on the number of primes $p < N$ for which the map…
Let F_q be a finite field with odd q elements. In this article, we prove that if E \subseteq \mathbb F_q^d, d\ge 2, and |E|\ge q, then there exists a set Y \subseteq \mathbb F_q^d with |Y|\sim q^d$ such that for all y\in Y, the number of…
We survey recent (and not so recent) results concerning arrangements of lines, points and other geometric objects and the applications these results have in theoretical computer science and combinatorics. The three main types of problems we…
We develop an approach to study character sums, weighted by a multiplicative function $f:\mathbb{F}_q[t]\to S^1$, of the form \begin{equation} \sum_{G\in \mathcal{M}_N}f(G)\chi(G)\xi(G), \end{equation} where $\chi$ is a Dirichlet character…
Chudnovsky, Kim, Oum, and Seymour recently established that any prime graph contains one of a short list of induced prime subgraphs [1]. In the present paper we reprove their theorem using many of the same ideas, but with the key…
A strong blocking set in a finite projective space is a set of points that intersects each hyperplane in a spanning set. We provide a new graph theoretic construction of such sets: combining constant-degree expanders with asymptotically…