How to find groups? (Q2250822)

Geometric questions which involve Euclidean distances often lead to polynomial relations of type \(F(x,y,z)=0\) for some \(F\in\mathbb{R} [x,y,z]\). Several problems of combinatorial geometry can be reduced to studying such polynomials which have many zeroes on some Cartesian products. In this paper the authors generalize the result presented in \textit{G. Elekes} and \textit{L. Rónyai} [J. Comb. Theory, Ser. A 89, No. 1, 1--20 (2000; Zbl 0953.05005)] to the case of algebraic varieties in \(\mathbb{C}^3\). The main result of the paper concerns low-degree algebraic sets \(F\) which contain ``too many'' points of a (large) \(n\times n\times n\) Cartesian product (i.e., \(X\times Y\times Z\subset \mathbb{C}^3\), where \(n=| X| =| Y| =| Z| \)), in which case the authors conclude that, in a neighborhood of almost any point, the set \(F\) must have a very special (and very simple) form. More precisely, then either \(F\) is a cylinder over some curve, or \(F\) must be the image of the graph of the multiplication function of an appropriate algebraic group.