On the number of directions determined by a pair of functions over a prime field (Q2426427)

Let \(q\) be a prime power and \(U=\{(a_i,b_i)\mid i=1,\ldots,q\}\) be a set of \(q\) points of the affine plane \(A(2,q).\) The classical direction problem looks for the size of the direction set of \(U\), defined as \[ D=\left\{\frac{a_i-a_j}{ b_i-b_j}\mid i\neq j\right\}\subseteq\mathbb{F}_q \cup\{\infty\}. \] In this paper a new three-dimensional analogue of the above problem is proposed and an asymptotically sharp bound for the number of directions determined by a non-planar set in \(A(3,p)\) for \(p\) prime is proved. The authors' approach is based on the permutation polynomials. In terms of polynomials over \(\mathbb{F}_q\) the set \(U\) can be defined as \(U=\{x,f(x),g(x)\mid x\in \mathbb{F}_q\}.\) The authors' main result is the following theorem: If the \(f(x)+ag(x)+b\) is a permutation polynomial for more than \((2s+1)(2s+p)/2,\;s=\lceil\frac{p-1}{6}\rceil,\) pairs \((a,b)\in\mathbb{F}_p^2,\) then there exist elements \(c,d,e\in\mathbb{F}_p\) such that \(f(x)=cg(x)+dx+e\).