Inverse questions for the large sieve

DOI10.1007/S00039-014-0288-1MaRDI QIDQ484089zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Adam J. Harper, Ben Green

Publication date 18 December 2014

Published in Geometric and Functional Analysis. GAFA (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1311.6176, http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/107458/7/WRAP-inverse-questions-large-sieve-Green-2018.pdf

zbMATH Keywords

additive structurearithmetic progressioninverse large sievelarge sievequadratic structurequasi-square numbersmall sievesquare-free numbersum of setsuniform fibres condition

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Sieves (11N35)

Abstract: Suppose that an infinite set $A$ occupies at most $frac12(p+1)$ residue classes modulo $p$, for every sufficiently large prime $p$. The squares, or more generally the integer values of any quadratic, are an example of such a set. By the large sieve inequality the number of elements of $A$ that are at most $X$ is $O(X^{1/2})$, and the quadratic examples show that this is sharp. The simplest form of the inverse large sieve problem asks whether they are the only examples. We prove a variety of results and formulate various conjectures in connection with this problem, including several improvements of the large sieve bound when the residue classes occupied by $A$ have some additive structure. Unfortunately we cannot solve the problem itself.

Review text

Let \(\mathcal{A}\) be an infinite set, \(x\geq 1\) and \(\mathcal{A}(x)=\mathcal{A}\cap\{1,2,\dots,x\}\). If the set \(\mathcal{A}\) occupies at most \((p+1)/2\) residue classes modulo \(p\), for every sufficiently large prime number \(p\), then the large sieve inequality implies that \(\mathcal{A}(x)\ll x^{1/2}\). This estimate is sharp up to the value of the constant in \(\ll\), as shown by taking \(\mathcal{A}\) to be the set of squares or the set of integer values taken by any rational quadratic. According to the authors the simplest form of the inverse large sieve problem asks whether whether they are the only examples. The authors prove various results and formulate various conjectures related with the inverse large sieve problem. Below there are presented two typical results from the paper. Theorem A. Suppose that for each prime \(p\leq x^{1/2}\) one has a set \(S_p\subset\mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z}\) of size at most \((p+1)/2\). Suppose there is some \(\delta>0\) such that, for each \(p\), \(S_p\) has at least \((\delta+1/16)\,p^3\) quadruples \((s_1,s_2,s_3,s_4)\) with property \(s_1+s_2=s_3+s_4\). If \(\mathcal{A}\pmod p \subset S_p\) for all \(p\), then \(\mathcal{A}(x)\leq x^{1/2-c\delta^2}\) with an absolute positive constant \(c\). Theorem B. Suppose that \(\mathcal{A}\) is a set of integers such that \(\mathcal{A}\pmod p\) lies in some interval \(I_p\) for each prime \(p\). {\parindent=6mm\begin{itemize}\item[{\(\bullet\)}] If \(|I_p|\leq(1-\varepsilon)\, p, \;\varepsilon\in(0,1),\) for at least a proportion \(\varepsilon\) of the primes in each dyadic interval \([z,2z]\), then \(\mathcal{A}(x)\ll_\varepsilon(\log\log x)^{c\log(1/\varepsilon)}\) with some positive absolute constant \(c\). \item[{\(\bullet\)}] If \(|I_p|\leq \,p/2\) for all \(p\), then \(|\mathcal{A}(x)|\leq(\log\log x)^{\gamma+o(1)}\), where \(\gamma=\log 18/\log(3/2)\).\item[{\(\bullet\)}] If \(I_p=[\alpha p,\beta p]\) for all primes \(p\) and some fixed \(0\leq\alpha<\beta<1\), then \(|\mathcal{A}|\ll_{\beta-\alpha}1\).\end{itemize}}

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Cites work

• A Generalisation of the Theorem of Cauchy and Davenport
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• A larger sieve
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• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3675980 (Why is no real title available?)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3523684 (Why is no real title available?)
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Cited in

(10)

• The inverse sieve problem for algebraic varieties over global fields
• Any small multiplicative subgroup is not a sumset
• The algebraicity of ill-distributed sets
• Mixing time of the Chung-Diaconis-Graham random process
• Additive decompositions of sets with restricted prime factors
• How small must ill-distributed sets be?
• The inverse sieve problem in high dimensions
• Conductors for sets of large integer squares
• Additive correlation and the inverse problem for the large sieve
• Polynomial values modulo primes on average and sharpness of the larger sieve

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