On the size of subsets of \(\mathbb{F}_q^n\) avoiding solutions to linear systems with repeated columns (Q6197305)

Summary: Consider a system of \(m\) balanced linear equations in \(k\) variables with coefficients in \(\mathbb{F}_q\). If \(k \ge 2m + 1\), then a routine application of the slice rank method shows that there are constants \(\beta,\gamma \ge 1\) with \(\gamma < q\) such that, for every subset \(S \subseteq \mathbb{F}_q^n\) of size at least \(\beta \cdot \gamma^n\), the system has a solution \((x_1, \ldots, x_k) \in S^k\) with \(x_1, \ldots, x_k\) not all equal. Building on a series of papers by Mimura and Tokushige and on a paper by Sauermann, this paper investigates the problem of finding a solution of higher non-degeneracy; that is, a solution where \(x_1, \ldots, x_k\) are pairwise distinct, or even a solution where \(x_1, \ldots, x_k\) do not satisfy any balanced linear equation that is not a linear combination of the equations in the system. In this paper, we focus on linear systems with repeated columns. For a large class of systems of this type, we prove that there are constants \(\beta, \gamma \ge 1\) with \(\gamma < q\) such that every subset \(S \subseteq \mathbb{F}_q^n\) of size at least \(\beta \cdot \gamma^n\) contains a solution that is non-degenerate (in one of the two senses described above). This class is disjoint from the class covered by Sauermann's result, and captures the systems studied by Mimura and Tokushige into a single proof. Moreover, a special case of our results shows that, if \(S \subseteq \mathbb{F}_p^n\) is a subset such that \(S - S\) does not contain a non-trivial \(k\)-term arithmetic progression (with \(p\) prime and \(3 \le k \le p)\), then \(S\) must have exponentially small density.