The Gowers U3 norm derivative identity is
Let . Since , by repeated Cauchy-Schwarz, the interval hypothesis gives . Also . Therefore the set
has density at least in .
Use normalized Fourier coefficients on a finite abelian group . The Gowers U2 norm and Parseval identity give
For , the final mean is at most one. Thus each has a frequency with
The derivative is identically zero unless is represented by an integer in , so lies in the requested interval of shifts. Its size is . Keep one such frequency for each shift; these same choices will satisfy the energy conclusion below.
Remove the quadratic phase by setting
The phase around the parallelogram is
so the hypothesis says exactly that , with harmless negative choices of the increments. The Fourier identity for the Gowers U2 norm and the Parseval identity now give
where the last inequality uses . Thus the Quadratic phase detection by the Gowers U2 norm supplies an such that
With normalized averages on the finite abelian group , the Gowers U2 norm is defined by
The Gowers U3 norm is defined by
where denotes complex conjugation.