Apply the Croot-Sisask almost-periodicity theorem with the sampling set , , , and error . Since , the doubling parameter is , and . We obtain with
such that
for every . Every is a sum of elements of . Telescoping these shifts and using translation invariance and the triangle inequality for the Lp norm gives
One normalized form of the Croot-Sisask almost-periodicity theorem is as follows. If finite sets in a group satisfy , , and , then for every function there is with
such that
One standard normalized form of the Croot-Sisask almost-periodicity theorem is this. Let be finite subsets of an abelian group with , let , let , and let be a complex function. There is with
such that every satisfies
For the proof, sample independent points of and approximate by the empirical average of the corresponding translates of . A moment inequality bounds the expected error, so many samples are good. The small size of lets a translation and pigeonhole argument find many shifts in producing the same good approximation. Subtracting two such shifts and applying the triangle inequality yields the almost periods in .