On restricted arithmetic progressions over finite fields

Brian Cook1, Ákos Magyar2
1Department of Mathematics, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T1Z2, Canada
2Department of Mathematics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z2, Canada

Abstract

Let \( A \) be a subset of \( \mathbb{F}_p^n \), the \( n \)-dimensional linear space over the prime field \( \mathbb{F}_p \), of size at least \( \delta N \) (\( N = p^n \)), and let \( S_v = P^{-1}(v) \) be the level set of a homogeneous polynomial map \( P : \mathbb{F}_p^n \to \mathbb{F}_p^R \) of degree \( d \), for \( v \in \mathbb{F}_p^R \). We show that, under appropriate conditions, the set \( A \) contains at least \( c N|S| \) arithmetic progressions of length \( l \leq d \) with common difference in \( S_v \), where \( c \) is a positive constant depending on \( \delta \), \( l \), and \( P \). We also show that the conditions are generic for a class of sparse algebraic sets of density \( \approx N^{-\gamma} \).