Distinct spreads in vector spaces over finite fields

In this short note, we study the distribution of spreads in a point set $\mathcal{P} \subseteq \mathbb{F}_q^d$, which are analogous to angles in Euclidean space. More precisely, we prove that, for any $\varepsilon > 0$, if $|\mathcal{P}| \geq (1+\varepsilon) q^{\lceil d/2 \rceil}$, then $\mathcal{P}$ generates a positive proportion of all spreads. We show that these results are tight, in the sense that there exist sets $\mathcal{P} \subset \mathbb{F}_q^d$ of size $|\mathcal{P}| = q^{\lceil d/2 \rceil}$ that determine at most one spread

A structure theorem for product sets in extra special groups

Hegyv\'ari and Hennecart showed that if $B$ is a sufficiently large brick of a Heisenberg group, then the product set $B\cdot B$ contains many cosets of the center of the group. We give a new, robust proof of this theorem that extends to all extra special groups as well as to a large family of quasigroups.Comment: This manuscript has been updated to include referee corrections. To appear in Journal of Number Theor

Incidences between points and generalized spheres over finite fields and related problems

Let $\mathbb{F}_q$ be a finite field of $q$ elements where $q$ is a large odd prime power and $Q =a_1 x_1^{c_1}+...+a_dx_d^{c_d}\in \mathbb{F}_q[x_1,...,x_d]$, where $2\le c_i\le N$, $\gcd(c_i,q)=1$, and $a_i\in \mathbb{F}_q$ for all $1\le i\le d$. A $Q$-sphere is a set of the form $\lbrace x\in \mathbb{F}_q^d | Q(x-b)=r\rbrace$, where $b\in \mathbb{F}_q^d, r\in \mathbb{F}_q$. We prove bounds on the number of incidences between a point set $\mathcal{P}$ and a $Q$-sphere set $\mathcal{S}$, denoted by $I(\mathcal{P},\mathcal{S})$, as the following. $$| I(\mathcal{P},\mathcal{S})-\frac{|\mathcal{P}||\mathcal{S}|}{q}|\le q^{d/2}\sqrt{|\mathcal{P}||\mathcal{S}|}.$$ We prove this estimate by studying the spectra of directed graphs. We also give a version of this estimate over finite rings $\mathbb{Z}_q$ where $q$ is an odd integer. As a consequence of the above bounds, we give an estimate for the pinned distance problem. In Sections $4$ and $5$, we prove a bound on the number of incidences between a random point set and a random $Q$-sphere set in $\mathbb{F}_q^d$. We also study the finite field analogues of some combinatorial geometry problems, namely, the number of generalized isosceles triangles, and the existence of a large subset without repeated generalized distances.Comment: to appear in Forum Mat