Maximising the number of solutions to a linear equation in a set of integers

Abstract: Given a linear equation of the form

a_{1} x_{1} + a_{2} x_{2} + a_{3} x_{3} = 0

with integer coefficients

a_{i}

, we are interested in maximising the number of solutions to this equation in a set

S s u b s e t e q m a t h b b Z

, for sets

S

of a given size. We prove that, for any choice of constants

a_{1}, a_{2}

and

a_{3}

, the maximum number of solutions is at least

l e f t (f r a c 112 + o (1) i g h t) | S |^{2}

. Furthermore, we show that this is optimal, in the following sense. For any

v a r e p s i l o n > 0,

there are choices of

a_{1}, a_{2}

and

a_{3},

for which any large set

S

of integers has at most

l e f t (f r a c 112 + v a r e p s i l o n i g h t) | S |^{2}

solutions. For equations in

k g e q 3

variables, we also show an analogous result. Set

s i g m a_{k} = i n t_{- i n f t y}^{i n f t y} (f r a c s i n p i x p i x)^{k} d x .

Then, for any choice of constants

a_{1}, d o t s, a_{k}

, there are sets

S

with at least

(f r a c s i g m a_{k} k^{k - 1} + o (1)) | S |^{k - 1}

solutions to

a_{1} x_{1} + d o t s + a_{k} x_{k} = 0

. Moreover, there are choices of coefficients

a_{1}, d o t s, a_{k}

for which any large set

S

must have no more than

(f r a c s i g m a_{k} k^{k - 1} + v a r e p s i l o n) | S |^{k - 1}

solutions, for any

v a r e p s i l o n > 0

.

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