Three topics in additive prime number theory

This is an expository article to accompany my two lectures at the CDM conference. I have used this an excuse to make public two sets of notes I had lying around, and also to put together a short reader's guide to some recent joint work with T.Tao. Contents: 1. An exposition, without much detail, of the work of Goldston, Pintz and Yildirim on gaps between primes; 2. A detailed discussion of the work of Mauduit and Rivat establishing that 50 percent of the primes have odd digit sum when written in base 2; 3. A reader's guide to recent work of T.Tao and the author on linear equations in primes. The sections can be read independently.Comment: 40 pages, notes to accompany my lectures at the Current Developments in Mathematics Conference, Harvard, 16th-17th November 200

Roth's theorem in the primes

We show that any set containing a positive proportion of the primes contains a 3-term arithmetic progression. An important ingredient is a proof that the primes enjoy the so-called Hardy-Littlewood majorant property. We derive this by giving a new proof of a rather more general result of Bourgain which, because of a close analogy with a classical argument of Tomas and Stein from Euclidean harmonic analysis, might be called a restriction theorem for the primes.Comment: 23 pages. Updated references and made some minor changes recommended by the referee. To appear in Annals of Mathematic

Counting sets with small sumset, and the clique number of random Cayley graphs

Given a set A in Z/NZ we may form a Cayley sum graph G_A on vertex set Z/NZ by joining i to j if and only if i + j is in A. We investigate the extent to which performing this construction with a random set A simulates the generation of a random graph, proving that the clique number of G_A is a.s. O(log N). This shows that Cayley sum graphs can furnish good examples of Ramsey graphs. To prove this result we must study the specific structure of set addition on Z/NZ. Indeed, we also show that the clique number of a random Cayley sum graph on (Z/2Z)^n, 2^n = N, is almost surely not O(log N). Despite the graph-theoretical title, this is a paper in number theory. Our main results are essentially estimates for the number of sets A in {1,...,N} with |A| = k and |A + A| = m, for various values of k and m.Comment: 18 pages; to appear in Combinatorica, exposition has been improved thanks to comments from Imre Ruzsa and Seva Le

Generalising the Hardy-Littlewood Method for Primes

The Hardy-Littlewood method is a well-known technique in analytic number theory. Among its spectacular applications are Vinogradov's 1937 result that every sufficiently large odd number is a sum of three primes, and a related result of Chowla and Van der Corput giving an asymptotic for the number of 3-term progressions of primes, all less than N. This article surveys recent developments of the author and T. Tao, in which the Hardy-Littlewood method has been generalised to obtain, for example, an asymptotic for the number of 4-term arithmetic progressions of primes less than N.Comment: 26 pages, submitted to Proceedings of ICM 200

Sarkozy's theorem in function fields

S\'ark\"ozy proved that dense sets of integers contain two elements differing by a $k$th power. The bounds in quantitative versions of this theorem are rather weak compared to what is expected. We prove a version of S\'ark\"ozy's theorem for polynomials over $\mathbb{F}_q$ with polynomial dependencies in the parameters. More precisely, let $P_{q,n}$ be the space of polynomials over $\mathbb{F}_q$ of degree $< n$ in an indeterminate $T$. Let $k \geq 2$ be an integer and let $q$ be a prime power. Set $c(k,q) := (2 k^2 D_q(k)^2\log q)^{-1}$, where $D_q(k)$ is the sum of the digits of $k$ in base $q$. If $A \subset P_{q,n}$ is a set with $|A| > 2q^{(1 - c(k,q))n}$, then $A$ contains distinct polynomials $p(T), p'(T)$ such that $p(T) - p'(T) = b(T)^k$ for some $b \in \mathbb{F}_q[T]$.Comment: 7 pages. Fourth version incorporates some corrections noted by Lisa Sauerman

The Cameron-Erdos Conjecture

A set A of integers is said to be sum-free if there are no solutions to the equation x + y = z with x,y and z all in A. Answering a question of Cameron and Erdos, we show that the number of sum-free subsets of {1,...,N} is O(2^(N/2)).Comment: 11 pages, to appear in Bull. London Math. So

Approximate groups and their applications: work of Bourgain, Gamburd, Helfgott and Sarnak

This is a survey of several exciting recent results in which techniques originating in the area known as additive combinatorics have been applied to give results in other areas, such as group theory, number theory and theoretical computer science. We begin with a discussion of the notion of an approximate group and also that of an approximate field, describing key results of Freiman-Ruzsa, Bourgain-Katz-Tao, Helfgott and others in which the structure of such objects is elucidated. We then move on to the applications. In particular we will look at the work of Bourgain and Gamburd on expansion properties of Cayley graphs on SL_2(F_p) and at its application in the work of Bourgain, Gamburd and Sarnak on nonlinear sieving problems.Comment: 25 pages. Survey article to accompany my forthcoming talk at the Current Events Bulletin of the AMS, 2010. A reference added and a few small changes mad