Generalized point configurations in ${\mathbb F}_q^d$

Abstract

In this paper, we generalize \cite{IosevichParshall}, \cite{LongPaths} and \cite{cycles} by allowing the \emph{distance} between two points in a finite field vector space to be defined by a general non-degenerate bilinear form or quadratic form. We prove the same bounds on the sizes of large subsets of $\F_q^d$ for them to contain distance graphs with a given maximal vertex degree, under the more general notion of distance. We also prove the same results for embedding paths, trees and cycles in the general setting.