arXiv subjects

Alex Iosevich

Publications and source records attributed to Alex Iosevich.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2025

The VC-dimension and point configurations in $\mathbb{R}^d$

Given a set $X$ and a collection ${\mathcal H}$ of functions from $X$ to $\{0,1\}$, the VC-dimension measures the complexity of the hypothesis class $\mathcal{H}$ in the context of PAC learning. In recent years, this has been connected to geometric configuration problems in vector spaces over finite fields. In particular, it is easy to show that the VC-dimension of the set of spheres of a given radius in $\mathbb{F}_q^d$ is equal to $d+1$, since this is how many points generically determine a sphere. It is known that for $E\subseteq \mathbb{F}_q^d$, $|E|\geq q^{d-\frac{1}{d-1}}$, the set of spheres centered at points in $E$, and intersected with the set $E$, has VC-dimension either $d$ or $d+1$. In this paper, we study a similar question over Euclidean space. We find an explicit dimensional threshold $s_d<d$ so that whenever $E\subseteq \mathbb{R}^d$, $d\geq 3$, and the Hausdorff dimension of $E$ is at least $s_d$, it follows that there exists an interval $I$ such that for any $t\in I$, the VC-dimension of the set of spheres of radius $t$ centered at points in $E$, and intersected with $E$, is at least $3$. In the process of proving this theorem, we also provide the first explicit dimensional threshold for a set $E\subseteq \mathbb{R}^3$ to contain a $4$-cycle, i.e. $x_1,x_2,x_3,x_4\in E$ satisfying $$ |x_1-x_2|=|x_2-x_3|=|x_3-x_4|=|x_4-x_1| $$

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arXiv2025

Realizing trees of configurations in thin sets

Let $ϕ(x,y)$ be a continuous function, smooth away from the diagonal, such that, for some $α>0$, the associated generalized Radon transforms \begin{equation} \label{Radon} R_t^ϕf(x)=\int_{ϕ(x,y)=t} f(y) ψ(y) dσ_{x,t}(y) \end{equation} map $L^2({\mathbb R}^d) \to L^2_α({\mathbb R}^d)$ for all $t>0$. Let $E$ be a compact subset of ${\mathbb R}^d$ for some $d \ge 2$, and suppose that the Hausdorff dimension of $E$ is $>d-α$. We show that any tree graph $T$ on $k+1$ ($k \ge 1$) vertices is \new{stably} realizable in $E$, in the sense that \new{for each $t$ in some open interval} there exist distinct $x^1, x^2, \dots, x^{k+1} \in E$ %and $t>0$ such that the $ϕ$-distance $ϕ(x^i, x^j)=t$ for all pairs $(i,j)$ corresponding to the edges of $T$. We extend this result to trees whose edges are prescribed by more complicated point configurations, such as congruence classes of triangles.

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arXiv2025

An Approach To Endpoint Problems in Oscillatory Singular Integrals

In this note we provide a quick proof that maximal truncations of oscillatory singular integrals are bounded from $L^1(\mathbb{R})$ to $L^{1,\infty}(\mathbb{R})$. The methods we use are entirely elementary, and rely only on pigeonholing and stationary phase considerations.

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arXiv2024

Fourier Uncertainty Principles on Riemannian Manifolds

The purpose of this paper is to develop a Fourier uncertainty principle on compact Riemannian manifolds and contrast the underlying ideas with those arising in the setting of locally compact abelian groups. The key obstacle is the growth of eigenfunctions, and connections to Bourgain's celebrated $Λ_q$ theorem are discussed in this context.

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arXiv2024

Congruence Classes of Simplex Structures in Finite Field Vector Spaces

We study a generalization of the Erdős-Falconer distance problem over finite fields. For a graph $G$, two embeddings $p, p': V(G) \to \mathbb{F}_q^d$ of a graph $G$ are congruent if for all edges $(v_i, v_j)$ of $G$ we have that $||p(v_i) - p(v_j)|| = ||p'(v_i) - p'(v_j)||$. What is the infimum of $s$ such that for any subset $E\subset \mathbb{F}_q^d$ with $|E| \gtrsim q^s$, $E$ contains a positive proportion of congruence classes of $G$ in $\mathbb{F}_q^d$? Bennett et al. and McDonald used group action methods to prove results in the case of $k$-simplices. The work of Iosevich, Jardine, and McDonald as well as that of Bright et al. have proved results in the case of trees and trees of simplices, utilizing the inductive nature of these graphs. Recently, Aksoy, Iosevich, and McDonald combined these two approaches to obtain nontrivial bounds on the "bowtie" graph, two triangles joined at a vertex. Their proof relies on an application of the Hadamard three-lines theorem to pass to a different graph. We develop novel geometric techniques called branch shifting and simplex unbalancing to reduce our analysis of trees of simplices to a much smaller class of simplex structures. This allows us to establish a framework that handles a wide class of graphs exhibiting a combination of rigid and loose behavior. In $\mathbb{F}_q^2$, this approach gives new nontrivial bounds on chains and trees of simplices. In $\mathbb{F}_q^d$, we improve on the results of Bright et al. in many cases and generalize their work to a wider class of simplex trees. We discuss partial progress on how this framework can be extended to more general simplex structures, such as cycles of simplices and structures of simplices glued together along an edge or a face.

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arXiv2024

Interpolation of point configurations in the discrete plane

Defining distances over finite fields formally by $||x-y||:=(x_1-y_1)^2+\cdots + (x_d-y_d)^2$ for $x,y\in \mathbb{F}_q^d$, distance problems naturally arise in analogy to those studied by Erdős and Falconer in Euclidean space. Given a graph $G$ and a set $E\subseteq \mathbb{F}_q^2$, let $Δ_G(E)$ be the generalized distance set corresponding to $G$. In the case when $G$ is the complete graph on $k+1$ vertices, Bennett, Hart, Iosevich, Pakianathan, and Rudnev showed that when $|E|\geq q^{d-\frac{d-1}{k+1}}$, it follows that $|Δ_G(E)|\geq cq^{\binom{k+1}{2}}$. In the case when $k=d=2$, the threshold can be improved to $|E|\geq q^{\frac{8}{5}}$. Moreover, Jardine, Iosevich, and McDonald showed that in the case when $G$ is a tree with $k+1$ vertices, then whenever $E\subseteq \mathbb{F}_q^d$, $d\geq 2$ satisfies $|E|\geq C_kq^{\frac{d+1}{2}}$, it follows that $Δ_G(E)=\mathbb{F}_q^k$. In this paper, we present a technique which enables us to study certain graphs with both rigid and non-rigid components. In particular, we show that for $E\subseteq \mathbb{F}_q^2$, $q=p^n$, $n$ odd, $p\equiv 3 \ \text{mod} \ 4$, and $G$ is the graph consisting of two triangles joined at a vertex, then whenever $|E|\geq q^{\frac{12}{7}}$, it follows that $|Δ_G(E)|\geq cq^6$.

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arXiv2024

Packing sets in Euclidean space by affine transformations

For Borel subsets $Θ\subset O(d)\times \mathbb{R}^d$ (the set of all rigid motions) and $E\subset \mathbb{R}^d$, we define \begin{align*} Θ(E):=\bigcup_{(g,z)\in Θ}(gE+z). \end{align*} In this paper, we investigate the Lebesgue measure and Hausdorff dimension of $Θ(E)$ given the dimensions of the Borel sets $E$ and $Θ$, when $Θ$ has product form. We also study this question by replacing rigid motions with the class of dilations and translations; and similarity transformations. The dimensional thresholds are sharp. Our results are variants of some previously known results in the literature when $E$ is restricted to smooth objects such as spheres, $k$-planes, and surfaces.

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arXiv2024

Nonempty interior of configuration sets via microlocal partition optimization

We prove new results of Mattila-Sjölin type, giving lower bounds on Hausdorff dimensions of thin sets $E\subset \Bbb R^d$ ensuring that various $k$-point configuration sets, generated by elements of $E$, have nonempty interior. The dimensional thresholds in our previous work \cite{GIT20} were dictated by associating to a configuration function a family of generalized Radon transforms, and then optimizing $L^2$-Sobolev estimates for them over all nontrivial bipartite partitions of the $k$ points. In the current work, we extend this by allowing the optimization to be done locally over the configuration's incidence relation, or even microlocally over the conormal bundle of the incidence relation. We use this approach to prove Mattila-Sjölin type results for (i) areas of subtriangles determined by quadrilaterals and pentagons in a set $E\subset\Bbb R^2$; (ii) pairs of ratios of distances of 4-tuples in $\Bbb R^d$; and (iii) similarity classes of triangles in $\Bbb R^d$, as well as to (iv) give a short proof of Palsson and Romero Acosta's result on congruence classes of triangles in $\Bbb R^d$.

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arXiv2024

A quantitative version of the Steinhaus theorem

The classical Steinhaus theorem (\cite{Steinhaus1920}) says that if $A \subset {\Bbb R}^d$ has positive Lebesgue measure than $A-A=\{x-y: x,y \in A\}$ contains an open ball. We obtain some quantitative lower bounds on the size of this ball and in some cases, relate it to natural geometric properties of $\partial A$. We also study the process $K_n =\frac{1}{2}(K_{n-1} - K_{n-1})$ when $K_0$ is a compact subset of $\mathbb{R}^d$ and determine various aspects of its convergence to $Conv(K_1)$, the convex hull of $K_1$. We discuss some connections with convex geometry, Weyl tube formula and the Kakeya needle problem. \noindent {\it Keywords: Measure theory, Steinhaus theorem, Convex geometry, Weyl tube formula.} \noindent 2020 {\it Mathematics Subject Classification:} Primary: 28A75, 52A27. Secondary: 52A30, 53A07.

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arXiv2023

A distinction between the paraboloid and the sphere in weighted restriction

For several weights based on lattice point constructions in $\mathbb{R}^d (d \geq 2)$, we prove that the sharp $L^2$ weighted restriction inequality for the sphere is very different than the corresponding result for the paraboloid. The proof uses Poisson summation, linear algebra, and lattice counting. We conjecture that the $L^2$ weighted restriction is generally better for the circle for a wide variety of general sparse weights.

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arXiv2023

$L^p$ integrability of functions with Fourier support on a smooth space curve

We prove that if $f\in L^p(\mathbb{R}^k)$ with $p<(k^2+k+2)/2$ satisfies that $\widehat{f}$ is supported on a small perturbation of the moment curve in $\mathbb{R}^k$, then $f$ is identically zero. This improves the more general result of Agranovsky and Narayanan, and the exponents are sharp in all dimensions. In the process, we develop a mechanism that should lead to further progress on related problems.

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arXiv2023

Uncertainty Principles on Finite Abelian Groups, Restriction Theory, and Applications to Sparse Signal Recovery

Let $G$ be a finite abelian group. Let $f: G \to {\mathbb C}$ be a signal (i.e. function). The classical uncertainty principle asserts that the product of the size of the support of $f$ and its Fourier transform $\hat f$, $\text{supp}(f)$ and $\text{supp}(\hat f)$ respectively, must satisfy the condition: $$|\text{supp}(f)| \cdot |\text{supp}(\hat f)| \geq |G|.$$ In the first part of this paper, we improve the uncertainty principle for signals with Fourier transform supported on generic sets. This improvement is achieved by employing {\it the restriction theory} and {\it the Salem set} mechanism from harmonic analysis. Then we investigate some applications of uncertainty principles that were developed in the first part of this paper, to the problem of unique recovery of finite sparse signals in the absence of some frequencies. Donoho and Stark (\cite{DS89}) showed that a signal of length $N$ can be recovered exactly, even if some of the frequencies are unobserved, provided that the product of the size of the number of non-zero entries of the signal and the number of missing frequencies is not too large, leveraging the classical uncertainty principle for vectors. Our results broaden the scope for a natural class of signals in higher-dimensional spaces. In the case when the signal is binary, we provide a very simple exact recovery mechanism through the DRA algorithm.

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arXiv2023

The quotient set of the quadratic distance set over finite fields

Let $\mathbb F_q^d$ be the $d$-dimensional vector space over the finite field $\mathbb F_q$ with $q$ elements. For each non-zero $r$ in $\mathbb F_q$ and $E\subset \mathbb F_q^d$, we define $W(r)$ as the number of quadruples $(x,y,z,w)\in E^4$ such that $ Q(x-y)/Q(z-w)=r,$ where $Q$ is a non-degenerate quadratic form in $d$ variables over $\mathbb F_q.$ When $Q(α)=\sum_{i=1}^d α_i^2$ with $α=(α_1, \ldots, α_d)\in \mathbb F_q^d,$ Pham (2022) recently used the machinery of group actions and proved that if $E\subset \mathbb F_q^2$ with $q\equiv 3 \pmod{4}$ and $|E|\ge C q$, then we have $W(r)\ge c |E|^4/q$ for any non-zero square number $r \in \mathbb F_q,$ where $C$ is a sufficiently large constant, $ c$ is some number between $0$ and $1,$ and $|E|$ denotes the cardinality of the set $E.$ In this article, we improve and extend Pham's result in two dimensions to arbitrary dimensions with general non-degenerate quadratic distances. As a corollary of our results, we also generalize the sharp results on the Falconer type problem for the quotient set of distance set due to the first two authors and Parshall (2019). Furthermore, we provide improved constants for the size conditions of the underlying sets. The key new ingredient is to relate the estimate of the $W(r)$ to a quadratic homogeneous variety in $2d$-dimensional vector space. This approach is fruitful because it allows us to take advantage of Gauss sums which are more handleable than the Kloosterman sums appearing in the standard distance type problems.

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arXiv2023

A singular variant of the Falconer distance problem

In this paper we study the following variant of the Falconer distance problem. Let $E$ be a compact subset of ${\mathbb{R}}^d$, $d \ge 1$, and define $$ \Box(E)=\left\{\sqrt{{|x-y|}^2+{|x-z|}^2}: x,y,z \in E,\, y\neq z \right\}.$$ We shall prove using a variety of methods that if the Hausdorff dimension of $E$ is greater than $\frac{d}{2}+\frac{1}{4}$, then the Lebesgue measure of $\Box(E)$ is positive. This problem can be viewed as a singular variant of the classical Falconer distance problem because considering the diagonal $(x,x)$ in the definition of $\Box(E)$ poses interesting complications stemming from the fact that the set $\{(x,x): x \in E\}\subseteq \mathbb{R}^{2d}$ is much smaller than the sets for which the Falconer type results are typically established. We also prove a finite field variant of the Euclidean results for $\Box(E)$ and indicate both the similarities and the differences between the two settings.

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arXiv2023

Generalized point configurations in ${\mathbb F}_q^d$

In this paper, we generalize \cite{IosevichParshall}, \cite{LongPaths} and \cite{cycles} by allowing the \emph{distance} between two points in a finite field vector space to be defined by a general non-degenerate bilinear form or quadratic form. We prove the same bounds on the sizes of large subsets of $\F_q^d$ for them to contain distance graphs with a given maximal vertex degree, under the more general notion of distance. We also prove the same results for embedding paths, trees and cycles in the general setting.

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arXiv2023

Improved bounds for embedding certain configurations in subsets of vector spaces over finite fields

The fourth listed author and Hans Parshall (\cite{IosevichParshall}) proved that if $E \subset {\mathbb F}_q^d$, $d \ge 2$, and $G$ is a connected graph on $k+1$ vertices such that the largest degree of any vertex is $m$, then if $|E| \ge C q^{m+\frac{d-1}{2}}$, for any $t>0$, there exist $k+1$ points $x^1, \dots, x^{k+1}$ in $E$ such that $||x^i-x^j||=t$ if the $i$'th vertex is connected to the $j$'th vertex by an edge in $G$. In this paper, we give several indications that the maximum degree is not always the right notion of complexity and prove several concrete results to obtain better exponents than the Iosevich-Parshall result affords. This can be viewed as a step towards understanding the right notion of complexity for graph embeddings in subsets of vector spaces over finite fields.

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arXiv2023

VC-Dimension and Distance Chains in $\mathbb{F}_q^d$

Given a domain $X$ and a collection $\mathcal{H}$ of functions $h:X\to \{0,1\}$, the Vapnik-Chervonenkis (VC) dimension of $\mathcal{H}$ measures its complexity in an appropriate sense. In particular, the fundamental theorem of statistical learning says that a hypothesis class with finite VC-dimension is PAC learnable. Recent work by Fitzpatrick, Wyman, the fourth and seventh named authors studied the VC-dimension of a natural family of functions $\mathcal{H}_t^{'2}(E): \mathbb{F}_q^2\to \{0,1\}$, corresponding to indicator functions of circles centered at points in a subset $E\subseteq \mathbb{F}_q^2$. They showed that when $|E|$ is large enough, the VC-dimension of $\mathcal{H}_t^{'2}(E)$ is the same as in the case that $E = \mathbb F_q^2$. We study a related hypothesis class, $\mathcal{H}_t^d(E)$, corresponding to intersections of spheres in $\mathbb{F}_q^d$, and ask how large $E\subseteq \mathbb{F}_q^d$ needs to be to ensure the maximum possible VC-dimension. We resolve this problem in all dimensions, proving that whenever $|E|\geq C_dq^{d-1/(d-1)}$ for $d\geq 3$, the VC-dimension of $\mathcal{H}_t^d(E)$ is as large as possible. We get a slightly stronger result if $d=3$: this result holds as long as $|E|\geq C_3 q^{7/3}$. Furthermore, when $d=2$ the result holds when $|E|\geq C_2 q^{7/4}$.

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arXiv2023

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 $d=3$.

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