Bisectors and pinned distances (Q2207607)

A well-known conjecture of \textit{P. Erdős} [Am. Math. Mon. 53, 248--250 (1946; Zbl 0060.34805)] is that between the pairs of any N points in \(\mathbb{R}^{2}\) occur at least \( \Omega (N (\log^{-\frac{1}{2}}(N))\) different distances. \textit{L. Guth} and \textit{N. H. Katz} [Ann. Math. (2) 181, No. 1, 155--190 (2015; Zbl 1310.52019)] showed that \( \Omega (N (\log^{-1}(N)))\) distinct distances must occur. Erdős also made a refinement of this conjecture. This refinement is that among any set A of N points in \(\mathbb{R}^{2}\), there must occur a point \(a\in A\) such that the remaining points of A are at \( \Omega (N (\log^{-\frac{1}{2}}(N))\) different distances from \(a\). This is often called the pinned distances conjecture. The best known bound of \( \Omega (N ^{0.864...})\) was proved by \textit{N. H. Katz} and \textit{G. Tardos} [Contemp. Math. 342, 119--126 (2004; Zbl 1069.52017)], who improved an earlier proof by \textit{J. Solymosi} and \textit{C. D. Tóth} [Discrete Comput. Geom. 25, No. 4, 629--634 (2001; Zbl 0988.52027)]. These problems have also been considered over other fields, particularly finite fields. The first work on the pinned variant of the distinct distance problem over finite fields was done by \textit{J. Bourgain} et al. [Geom. Funct. Anal. 14, No. 1, 27--57 (2004; Zbl 1145.11306)]. Prior to this paper, the strongest general quantitative bound for small sets was by \textit{S. Stevens} and \textit{F. de Zeeuw} [Bull. Lond. Math. Soc. 49, No. 5, 842--858 (2017; Zbl 1388.51002)], who proved that the pinned distance number is equal to \(\Omega(N^{1/2+1/30})\) over any field of characteristic not equal to 2. \textit{A. Iosevich} et al. [``A new bound on Erdős distinct distances problem in the plane over prime fields'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1805.08900}] recently gave the bound \(\Omega (N^{1/2+149/4214})\) for the distance number for point sets in \(\mathbb{ F}_{p}^{2}\), \(p\) a prime number such that \(p \equiv3\ (\operatorname{mod}4)\). Subsequent work by \textit{A. Iosevich} et al. [``A new perspective on the distance problem over prime fields'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1905.04179}] has led to an improved bound of the distance number \(\Omega (N^{ N1/2+69/1558})\), again for point sets in \(\mathbb{ F}_{p}^{2}\), \(p\) a prime number such that \(p \equiv3\ (\operatorname{mod}4)\). The main result of this article is quantitatively stronger than the earlier result of Iosevich et. al. [arXiv:1805.08900, loc. cit.; arXiv:1905.04179, loc. cit.], and applies in the general setting of Stevens and de Zeeuw [loc. cit.]. More precisely the authors obtained, under suitable conditions, a lower bound on the number of pinned distances determined by small subsets of two-dimensional vector spaces over fields. For finite subsets of the Euclidean plane they proved an upper bound for their bisector energy.