Paper detail

Tower-type bounds for Roth's theorem with popular differences

Green developed an arithmetic regularity lemma to prove a strengthening of Roth's theorem on arithmetic progressions in dense sets. It states that for every $ε> 0$ there is some $N_0(ε)$ such that for every $N \ge N_0(ε)$ and $A \subset [N]$ with $|A| = αN$, there is some nonzero $d$ such that $A$ contains at least $(α^3 - ε) N$ three-term arithmetic progressions with common difference $d$. We prove that the minimum $N_0(ε)$ in Green's theorem is an exponential tower of 2s of height on the order of $\log(1/ε)$. Both the lower and upper bounds are new. It shows that the tower-type bounds that arise from the use of a regularity lemma in this application are quantitatively necessary.