Sets with few distinct distances do not have heavy lines

Let $P$ be a set of $n$ points in the plane that determines at most $n/5$ distinct distances. We show that no line can contain more than $O(n^{43/52}{\rm polylog}(n))$ points of $P$. We also show a similar result for rectangular distances, equivalent to distances in the Minkowski plane, where the distance between a pair of points is the area of the axis-parallel rectangle that they span

Bisector energy and few distinct distances

We introduce the bisector energy of an $n$-point set $P$ in $\mathbb{R}^2$, defined as the number of quadruples $(a,b,c,d)$ from $P$ such that $a$ and $b$ determine the same perpendicular bisector as $c$ and $d$. If no line or circle contains $M(n)$ points of $P$, then we prove that the bisector energy is $O(M(n)^{\frac{2}{5}}n^{\frac{12}{5}+\epsilon} + M(n)n^2).$. We also prove the lower bound $\Omega(M(n)n^2)$, which matches our upper bound when $M(n)$ is large. We use our upper bound on the bisector energy to obtain two rather different results: (i) If $P$ determines $O(n/\sqrt{\log n})$ distinct distances, then for any $0<\alpha\le 1/4$, either there exists a line or circle that contains $n^\alpha$ points of $P$, or there exist $\Omega(n^{8/5-12\alpha/5-\epsilon})$ distinct lines that contain $\Omega(\sqrt{\log n})$ points of $P$. This result provides new information on a conjecture of Erd\H{o}s regarding the structure of point sets with few distinct distances. (ii) If no line or circle contains $M(n)$ points of $P$, then the number of distinct perpendicular bisectors determined by $P$ is $\Omega(\min\{M(n)^{-2/5}n^{8/5-\epsilon}, M(n)^{-1} n^2\})$. This appears to be the first higher-dimensional example in a framework for studying the expansion properties of polynomials and rational functions over $\mathbb{R}$, initiated by Elekes and R\'onyai.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figure

Improved Elekes-Szab\'o type estimates using proximity

We prove a new Elekes-Szab\'o type estimate on the size of the intersection of a Cartesian product $A\times B\times C$ with an algebraic surface $\{f=0\}$ over the reals. In particular, if $A,B,C$ are sets of $N$ real numbers and $f$ is a trivariate polynomial, then either $f$ has a special form that encodes additive group structure (for example $f(x,y,x) = x + y - z$), or $A \times B\times C \cap\{f=0\}$ has cardinality $O(N^{12/7})$. This is an improvement over the previously bound $O(N^{11/6})$. We also prove an asymmetric version of our main result, which yields an Elekes-Ronyai type expanding polynomial estimate with exponent $3/2$. This has applications to questions in combinatorial geometry related to the Erd\H{o}s distinct distances problem. Like previous approaches to the problem, we rephrase the question as a $L^2$ estimate, which can be analyzed by counting additive quadruples. The latter problem can be recast as an incidence problem involving points and curves in the plane. The new idea in our proof is that we use the order structure of the reals to restrict attention to a smaller collection of proximate additive quadruples.Comment: 7 pages, 0 figure

VC-Dimension of Hyperplanes over Finite Fields

Let $\mathbb{F}_q^d$ be the $d$-dimensional vector space over the finite field with $q$ elements. For a subset $E\subseteq \mathbb{F}_q^d$ and a fixed nonzero $t\in \mathbb{F}_q$, let $\mathcal{H}_t(E)=\{h_y: y\in E\}$, where $h_y$ is the indicator function of the set $\{x\in E: x\cdot y=t\}$. Two of the authors, with Maxwell Sun, showed in the case $d=3$ that if $|E|\geq Cq^{\frac{11}{4}}$ and $q$ is sufficiently large, then the VC-dimension of $\mathcal{H}_t(E)$ is 3. In this paper, we generalize the result to arbitrary dimension and improve the exponent in the case $d=3$.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur

Higher Distance Energies and Expanders with Structure

We adapt the idea of higher moment energies, originally used in Additive Combinatorics, so that it would apply to problems in Discrete Geometry. This new approach leads to a variety of new results, such as (i) Improved bounds for the problem of distinct distances with local properties. (ii) Improved bounds for problems involving expanding polynomials in ${\mathbb R}[x,y]$ (Elekes-Ronyai type bounds) when one or two of the sets have structure. Higher moment energies seem to be related to additional problems in Discrete Geometry, to lead to new elegant theory, and to raise new questions