Approximate algebraic structure

We discuss a selection of recent developments in arithmetic combinatorics having to do with ``approximate algebraic structure'' together with some of their applications.Comment: 25 pages. Submitted to Proceedings of the ICM 2014. This version may be longer than the published one, as my submission was 4 pages too long with the official style fil

The apparent structure of dense Sidon sets

The correspondence between perfect difference sets and transitive projective planes is well-known. We observe that all known dense (i.e., close to square-root size) Sidon subsets of abelian groups come from projective planes through a similar construction. We classify the Sidon sets arising in this manner from desarguesian planes and find essentially no new examples, but there are many further examples arising from nondesarguesian planes. We conjecture that all dense Sidon sets arise in this manner. We also give a brief bestiary of somewhat smaller Sidon sets with a variety of algebraic origins, and for some of them provide an overarching pattern.Comment: 16 page

A bound on the multiplicative energy of a sum set and extremal sum-product problems

In recent years some near-optimal estimates have been established for certain sum-product type estimates. This paper gives some first extremal results which provide information about when these bounds may or may not be tight. The main tool is a new result which provides a nontrivial upper bound on the multiplicative energy of a sum set or difference set.Comment: 13 page

The structure theory of set addition revisited

In this article we survey some of the recent developments in the structure theory of set addition.Comment: 38p

Discrete Geometry

The workshop on Discrete Geometry was attended by 53 participants, many of them young researchers. In 13 survey talks an overview of recent developments in Discrete Geometry was given. These talks were supplemented by 16 shorter talks in the afternoon, an open problem session and two special sessions. Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): 52Cxx. Abstract regular polytopes: recent developments. (Peter McMullen) Counting crossing-free configurations in the plane. (Micha Sharir) Geometry in additive combinatorics. (József Solymosi) Rigid components: geometric problems, combinatorial solutions. (Ileana Streinu) • Forbidden patterns. (János Pach) • Projected polytopes, Gale diagrams, and polyhedral surfaces. (Günter M. Ziegler) • What is known about unit cubes? (Chuanming Zong) There were 16 shorter talks in the afternoon, an open problem session chaired by Jesús De Loera, and two special sessions: on geometric transversal theory (organized by Eli Goodman) and on a new release of the geometric software Cinderella (Jürgen Richter-Gebert). On the one hand, the contributions witnessed the progress the field provided in recent years, on the other hand, they also showed how many basic (and seemingly simple) questions are still far from being resolved. The program left enough time to use the stimulating atmosphere of the Oberwolfach facilities for fruitful interaction between the participants

Combinatorics and Probability

For the past few decades, Combinatorics and Probability Theory have had a fruitful symbiosis, each benefitting from and influencing developments in the other. Thus to prove the existence of designs, probabilistic methods are used, algorithms to factorize integers need combinatorics and probability theory (in addition to number theory), and the study of random matrices needs combinatorics. In the workshop a great variety of topics exemplifying this interaction were considered, including problems concerning designs, Cayley graphs, additive number theory, multiplicative number theory, noise sensitivity, random graphs, extremal graphs and random matrices