An effective local-global principle and additive combinatorics in finite fields (Q6565891)

Recall that the set \(A \subseteq \mathbf{F}_p\) is a generalized arithmetic progression (GAP) of dimension \(d\) if\N\[\NA = \{ x_0 + x_1 s_1 + \dots + x_d s_d ~:~ s_j \in H \} \,.\N\]\NIn the paper, the authors consider the equations \(ab = \lambda\), \(a^{-1} + b^{-1} = \lambda\) and \(a^2+b^2 = \lambda\), where \(a \in A\), \(b\in B\), \(\lambda \in \overline{\mathbf{F}}_p \setminus \{0\}\) and \(A\), \(B\) are GAPs of dimensions \(d\) and \(e\), respectively. They obtain an upper bound of the form \(\exp (c (d) \log H/ \log \log H)\) for all three quantities, provided that \(H\le C(d) p^{\gamma (d+e+1)}\), where \(\gamma^{-1} (s) = (11s+15)2^{3s+5}\), \(c(d), C(d) >0\) are constants and under some weaker conditions on \(H\) if the prime \(p\) belongs to a constructible set of primes. The proof uses some tools from the geometry of numbers and other ideas.