The number of occurrences of a fixed spread among \(n\) directions in vector spaces over finite fields (Q2637739)

\textit{P. Erdős} et al. [Am. Math. Mon. 96, No. 7, 569--575 (1989; Zbl 0737.05006)] studied a problem of Leo Moser about how many times an angle can occur among \(n\) directions in the Euclidean 3-space. For the right angle the answer is \(O(n^{4/3})\), and for a generic angle little is known. The paper under review studies the analogous problem in the 3-dimensional geometry over the finite field \(\mathrm{GF}(q)\), where \(q\) is a large prime number. Recall that in a power of a finite field, the sum of squares of coordinate differences is the analogue of distance. Following Wildberger, the paper uses the algebraic concept of spread instead of the geometric concept of the angle. In Euclidean geometry, the spread is the square of the sine of the angle. The main result of the paper is that if \(E\) is a set of unit vectors in \(\mathrm{GF}(q)^3\) with \(q^{3/2} << |E| << q^2\), then for any \(\gamma\in\mathrm{GF}(q)\), the number of occurrences of the spread among elements of \(E\) is \(O(|E|^2/q)\), if \(1-\gamma\) is a square in \(\mathrm{GF}(q)\), otherwise zero.