On the finite field Kakeya problem in two dimensions (Q877936)

The Euclidean Kakeya problem asks for the minimum Hausdorff (or Minkowski) dimension of a Besicovitch set, that is, a compact subset of \(\mathbb{R}^n\) which contains a unit line segment in every direction. Whether or not this minimum dimension equals \(n\) for \(n>2\) remains an important open question in analysis [see \textit{T. Tao}, Notices Am. Math. Soc. 48, No. 3, 294--303 (2001; Zbl 0992.42002)]. The finite field analogue of the Kakeya problem was originally suggested by \textit{T. Wolff} [Rossi, Hugo (ed.), Prospects in mathematics. Invited talks on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of Princeton University. Papers from the conference, Princeton, NJ, USA, March 17--21, 1996. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society. 129--162 (1999; Zbl 0934.42014)] and asks for the smallest subset of \(\mathbb{F}_q^n\) that contains a line segment in every direction. This question has very recently been completely resolved through a surprisingly simple and elegant argument by \textit{Z. Dvir} [\url{http://arxiv.org/abs/0803.2336} (2008)], who showed that such a set must have cardinality at least \(C_n q^n\), with the constant \(C_n\) depending only on \(n\). The present paper was written before this important breakthrough and focuses on the special case \(\mathbb{F}_q^2\). The starting point is given by the so-called Incidence Formula, which states that if \(B\) is a Besicovitch set of the form \(B=\bigcup_{i \in \mathbb{F}_q^n \cup \infty}l(i,b_i)\), where \(l(b,m)\) denotes the line \(y=mx+b\), then \[ | B| =\frac{q(q+1)}{2}+\sum_{P \in B} \frac{(m_P-1)(m_P-2)}{2}, \] where \(m_P\) denotes the number of lines passing through the point \(P \in \mathbb{F}_q^2\). The author conjectures that the second term in this expression is bounded below by \(\frac{q-1}{2}\). He goes on to prove the lower bound of \(\frac{q}{3}\) for any odd \(q\), and the conjectured lower bound of \(\frac{q-1}{2}\) in the special case that there exists an index \(j \in \mathbb{F}_q \cup \infty\) such that every point \(P \in B\) with \(m_P \geq 3\) lies on the line \(l(j, b_j)\). The author also determines the expected cardinality of a Besicovitch set formed by the union of \(q+1\) randomly chosen lines with distinct slopes, which turns out to equal \((1-e^{-1})q^2\).