Distinct triangle areas in a planar point set over finite fields (Q648405)

Summary: Let \(\mathcal P\) be a set of \(n\) points in the finite plane \(\mathbb F^2_q\) over the finite field \(\mathbb F_q\) of \(q\) elements, where \(q\) is an odd prime power. For any \(s\in \mathbb F_q\), denote by \(A(\mathcal P; s)\) the number of ordered triangles whose vertices in \(\mathcal P\) having area \(s\). We show that if the cardinality of \(\mathcal P\) is large enough then \(A(\mathcal P; s)\) is close to the expected number \(|\mathcal P|^3/q\).