On the Structure of Sets with Few Three-Term Arithmetic Progressions

Abstract

Fix a density d in (0,1], and let F_p^n be a finite field, where we think of p fixed and n tending to infinity. Let S be any subset of F_p^n having the minimal number of three-term progressions, subject to the constraint |S| is at least dp^n. We show that S must have some structure, and that up to o(p^n) elements, it is a union of a small number of cosets of a subspace of dimension n-o(n).