An almost-tight $L^2$ autoconvolution inequality

Abstract

Let $\mathcal{F}$ denote the set of functions $f \colon [-1/2,1/2] \to \mathbb{R}$ such that $\int f = 1$. We determine the value of $\inf_{f \in \mathcal{F}} \| f \ast f \|_2$ up to a 0.0014\% error, thereby making progress on a problem asked by Ben Green. Furthermore, we prove that a unique minimizer exists. As a corollary, we obtain improvements on the maximum size of $B_h[g]$ sets for $(g,h) \in \{ (2,2),(3,2),(4,2),(1,3),(1,4)\}$.