An analogue of Vosper's Theorem for Extension Fields

Abstract

We are interested in characterising pairs $S,T$ of $F$-linear subspaces in a field extension $L/F$ such that the linear span $ST$ of the set of products of elements of $S$ and of elements of $T$ has small dimension. Our central result is a linear analogue of Vosper's Theorem, which gives the structure of vector spaces $S, T$ in a prime extension $L$ of a finite field $F$ for which $\dim_FST =\dim_F S+\dim_F T-1,$ when $\dim_F S, \dim_F T\ge 2$ and $\dim_F ST\le [L:F]-2$.