English

Decompositions, approximate structure, transference, and the Hahn-Banach theorem

Combinatorics 2014-02-26 v1 Functional Analysis

Abstract

This paper is partly a survey of certain kinds of results and proofs in additive combinatorics, and partly a discussion of how useful the finite-dimensional Hahn-Banach theorem can be. The most interesting single result is probably a simpler proof of a key step in the proof of the Green-Tao theorem, but several other applications of the method are given. A similarly simplified proof of the Green-Tao transference principle was obtained independently (and expressed in a rather different language) by Reingold, Trevisan, Tulsiani and Vadhan.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0811.3103,
  title  = {Decompositions, approximate structure, transference, and the Hahn-Banach theorem},
  author = {W. T. Gowers},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0811.3103},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

48 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-21T11:43:15.341Z