Classical Roth bound for three-term progressions

ID: classical-roth-bound-for-three-term-progressions

Write for the maximum cardinality of a subset of containing no nonconstant three-term arithmetic progression. There is an absolute constant such that every three-term-progression-free subset satisfies for . A quantitative Roth density-increment step gives, for subset density and , a arithmetic progression of length at least and increased subset density at least . The increment decreases reciprocal subset density by at least , so fewer than iterations are possible. If is the successive length, then , using the initial subset density to bound all later ones. Hence . If exceeds a sufficiently large absolute constant, all these intervals remain above the density increment threshold, a contradiction. This proves the displayed bound. The result is a classical quantitative version of Roth theorem on three-term arithmetic progressions, without asserting an optimal bound.

New to topics? Read the docs here!