Sum and shifted-product subsets of product-sets over finite rings (Q426913)

Summary: For sufficiently large subsets \(\mathcal{A}, \mathcal{B}, \mathcal{C}, \mathcal{D}\) of \({\mathbb{F}}_q\), \textit{K. Gyarmati} and \textit{A. Sárközy} [Acta Math. Hung. 118, No. 1--2, 129--148 (2008; Zbl 1164.11074) and ibid. 119, No. 3, 259--280 (2008; Zbl 1199.11141)] showed the solvability of the equations \(a + b= c d\) and \(a b + 1 = c d\) with \(a \in \mathcal{A}\), \(b \in \mathcal{B}\), \(c \in \mathcal{C}\), \(d \in \mathcal{D}\). They asked whether one can extend these results to every \(k \in \mathbb{N}\) in the following way: for large subsets \(\mathcal{A}, \mathcal{B}, \mathcal{C}, \mathcal{D}\) of \({\mathbb{F}}_q\), there are \(a_1, \dots, a_k, a_1', \dots, a_k' \in \mathcal{A}\), \(b_1, \dots,b_k, b_1', \dots,b_k' \in \mathcal{B}\) with \(a_i + b_j, a_i' b_j' + 1 \in \mathcal{C}\mathcal{D}\) (for \(1 \leq i\), \(j\leq k\)). The author [Eur. J. Comb. 32, No. 8, 1177--1181 (2011; Zbl 1253.11015)] gave an affirmative answer to this question using Fourier analytic methods. In this paper, we will extend this result to the setting of finite cyclic rings using tools from spectral graph theory.