Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 iii Paper 79 1 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
The high-energy Roth theorem concludes that, for fixed , a sufficiently large finite set of integers with additive energy at least contains a nonconstant three-term arithmetic progression. The size threshold depends on , and there is no assumption about the diameter of .
Here is why additive energy replaces interval subset density. The Balog-Szemerédi-Gowers theorem in the small-difference set form proved in Question 3 supplies with and . The Petridis minimal-growth lemma, the Ruzsa triangle inequality, and the Ruzsa modeling lemma, all proved there, then give a subset of size at least and a Freiman s-isomorphism of order eight onto , whereRepresent by residues in . One of the two consecutive half-intervals has subset density bounded below by a positive constant depending only on ; their lengths tend to infinity with . Apply the Roth theorem on three-term arithmetic progressions proved in part (i) to this interval. The resulting three distinct residues satisfy modulo . The inverse Freiman homomorphism preserves that equality and distinctness, so its preimages form a nonconstant three-term arithmetic progression in , hence in .