Progress on local properties problems of difference sets (Q2107491)

For parameters \(n\), \(k\), and \(\ell\), the author considers sets \(A\) of \(n\) real numbers, such that every subset \(A^\prime\subset A\) of size \(k\) satisfies \(|A^\prime-A^\prime|\geq \ell\), where the difference set of a set \(A \subset \mathbb{R}\) is defined as \(A-A = \{a-a^\prime: a, a^\prime\in A\) and \(a-a^\prime > 0\}\). Let \(g(n, k, \ell)\) be the minimum size of \(|A -A|\), over all such sets \(A\). For a fixed \(k\), the quadratic threshold is defined as the smallest \(\ell\) for which \(g(n, k, \ell) = \Theta(n^{2})\) and the super-linear threshold as the largest \(\ell\) for which \(g(n, k, \ell) = O(n)\). In this paper, the numbers \(g(n, k,\ell)\) are studied and several new bounds for the problem of difference sets with local properties are derived, such as establishing the super-linear threshold of the problem. For the proofs, several new tools, including a variant of higher moment energies and a Ramsey-theoretic approach to the problem are developed. Three open questions and a conjecture conclude the paper.