On the size of subsets of Fnq avoiding solutions to linear systems with repeated columns

Journal Article (2023)
Author(s)

J. van Dobben de Bruyn (TU Delft - Discrete Mathematics and Optimization)

D.C. Gijswijt (TU Delft - Discrete Mathematics and Optimization)

Research Group
Discrete Mathematics and Optimization
Copyright
© 2023 J. van Dobben de Bruyn, Dion Gijswijt
DOI related publication
https://doi.org/10.37236/10883
More Info
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Publication Year
2023
Language
English
Copyright
© 2023 J. van Dobben de Bruyn, Dion Gijswijt
Research Group
Discrete Mathematics and Optimization
Issue number
4
Volume number
30
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Abstract

Consider a system of m balanced linear equations in k variables with coefficients in Fq. If k ⩾ 2m + 1, then a routine application of the slice rank method shows that there are constants β, γ ⩾ 1 with γ < q such that, for every subset S ⊆ Fnq of size at least β · γn, the system has a solution (x1, …, xk) ∈ Sk with x1, …, xk not all equal. Building on a series of papers by Mimura and Tokushige and on a paper by Sauermann, this paper investigates the problem of finding a solution of higher non-degeneracy; that is, a solution where x1, …, xk are pairwise distinct, or even a solution where x1, …, xk do not satisfy any balanced linear equation that is not a linear combination of the equations in the system. In this paper, we focus on linear systems with repeated columns. For a large class of systems of this type, we prove that there are constants β, γ ⩾ 1 with γ < q such that every subset S ⊆ Fnq of size at least β · γn contains a solution that is non-degenerate (in one of the two senses described above). This class is disjoint from the class covered by Sauermann’s result, and captures the systems studied by Mimura and Tokushige into a single proof. Moreover, a special case of our results shows that, if S ⊆ Fnp is a subset such that S − S does not contain a non-trivial k-term arithmetic progression (with p prime and 3 ⩽ k ⩽ p), then S must have exponentially small density.