arXiv subjects

Chi Hoi Yip

Publications and source records attributed to Chi Hoi Yip.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2025

Positivity preservers over finite fields

We resolve an algebraic version of Schoenberg's celebrated theorem [Duke Math.J., 1942] characterizing entrywise matrix transforms that preserve positive definiteness. Compared to the classical real and complex settings, we consider matrices with entries in a finite field and obtain a complete characterization of such preservers for matrices of a fixed dimension. When the dimension of the matrices is at least $3$, we prove that, surprisingly, the positivity preservers are precisely the positive multiples of the field's automorphisms. We also obtain characterizations of preservers for matrices of dimension $2$ over a finite field with $q$ elements, unless $q \equiv 1 \pmod 4$ and $q$ is not a square. Our proofs build on several novel connections between positivity preservers and field automorphisms via the works of Weil, Carlitz, and Muzychuk-Kovács, and via the structure of cliques in Paley graphs.

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arXiv2025

Proportion of blocking curves in a pencil

Let $\mathcal{L}$ be a pencil of plane curves defined over $\mathbb{F}_q$ with no $\mathbb{F}_q$-points in its base locus. We investigate the number of curves in $\mathcal{L}$ whose $\mathbb{F}_q$-points form a blocking set. When the degree of the pencil is allowed to grow with respect to $q$, we show that the geometric problem can be translated into a purely combinatorial problem about disjoint blocking sets. We also study the same problem when the degree of the pencil is fixed.

math.AG↗

arXiv2025

Avoiding short progressions in Euclidean Ramsey theory

We provide a general framework to construct colorings avoiding short monochromatic arithmetic progressions in Euclidean Ramsey theory. Specifically, if $\ell_m$ denotes $m$ collinear points with consecutive points of distance one apart, we say that $\mathbb{E}^n \not \to (\ell_r,\ell_s)$ if there is a red/blue coloring of $n$-dimensional Euclidean space that avoids red congruent copies of $\ell_r$ and blue congruent copies of $\ell_s$. We show that $\mathbb{E}^n \not \to (\ell_3, \ell_{20})$, improving the best-known result $\mathbb{E}^n \not \to (\ell_3, \ell_{1177})$ by Führer and Tóth, and also establish $\mathbb{E}^n \not \to (\ell_4, \ell_{14})$ and $\mathbb{E}^n \not \to (\ell_5, \ell_{8})$ in the spirit of the classical result $\mathbb{E}^n \not \to (\ell_6, \ell_{6})$ due to Erdős et. al. We also show a number of similar $3$-coloring results, as well as $\mathbb{E}^n \not \to (\ell_3, α\ell_{6889})$, where $α$ is an arbitrary positive real number. This final result answers a question of Führer and Tóth in the positive.

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arXiv2025

Mutual position of two smooth quadrics over finite fields

Given two irreducible conics $C$ and $D$ over a finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$ with $q$ odd, we show that there are $q^2/4+O(q^{3/2})$ points $P$ in $\mathbb{P}^2(\mathbb{F}_q)$ such that $P$ is external to $C$ and internal to $D$. This answers a question of Korchmáros. We also prove the analogous result for higher-dimensional smooth quadric hypersurfaces in $\mathbb{P}^{n-1}$ with $n$ odd, where the answer is $q^{n-1}/4+O(q^{n-\frac{3}{2}})$.

math.AG↗

arXiv2025

On an Erdős similarity problem in the large

In a recent paper, Kolountzakis and Papageorgiou ask if for every $ε\in (0,1]$, there exists a set $S \subseteq \mathbb{R}$ such that $\vert S \cap I\vert \geq 1 - ε$ for every interval $I \subset \mathbb{R}$ with unit length, but that does not contain any affine copy of a given increasing sequence of exponential growth or faster. This question is an analogue of the well-known Erdős similarity problem. In this paper, we show that for each sequence of real numbers whose integer parts form a set of positive upper Banach density, one can explicitly construct such a set $S$ that contains no affine copy of that sequence. Since there exist sequences of arbitrarily rapid growth that satisfy this condition, our result answers Kolountzakis and Papageorgiou's question in the affirmative. A key ingredient of our proof is a generalization of results by Amice, Kahane, and Haight from metric number theory. In addition, we construct a set $S$ with the required property -- but with $ε\in (1/2, 1]$ -- that contains no affine copy of $\{2^n\}$.

math.CA↗

arXiv2025

Uniform set systems with small VC-dimension

We investigate the longstanding problem of determining the maximum size of a $(d+1)$-uniform set system with VC-dimension at most $d$. Since the seminal 1984 work of Frankl and Pach, which established the elegant upper bound $\binom{n}{d}$, this question has resisted significant progress. The best-known lower bound is $\binom{n-1}{d} + \binom{n-4}{d-2}$, obtained by Ahlswede and Khachatrian, leaving a substantial gap of $\binom{n-1}{d-1}-\binom{n-4}{d-2}$. Despite decades of effort, improvements to the Frankl--Pach bound have been incremental at best: Mubayi and Zhao introduced an $Ω_d(\log{n})$ improvement for prime powers $d$, while Ge, Xu, Yip, Zhang, and Zhao achieved a gain of 1 for general $d$. In this work, we provide a purely combinatorial approach that significantly sharpens the Frankl--Pach upper bound. Specifically, for large $n$, we demonstrate that the Frankl--Pach bound can be improved to $\binom{n}{d} - \binom{n-1}{d-1} + O_d(n^{d-1 - \frac{1}{4d-2}})=\binom{n-1}{d}+O_d(n^{d-1 - \frac{1}{4d-2}})$. This result completely removes the main term $\binom{n-1}{d-1}$ from the previous gap between the known lower and upper bounds. It also offers fresh insights into the combinatorial structure of uniform set systems with small VC-dimension. In addition, the original Erdős--Frankl--Pach conjecture, which sought to generalize the EKR theorem in the 1980s, has been disproven. We propose a new refined conjecture that might establish a sturdier bridge between VC-dimension and the EKR theorem, and we verify several specific cases of this conjecture, which is of independent interest.

math.CO↗

arXiv2025

Multiplicatively reducible subsets of shifted perfect $k$-th powers and bipartite Diophantine tuples

Recently, Hajdu and Sárközy studied the multiplicative decompositions of polynomial sequences. In particular, they showed that when $k \geq 3$, each infinite subset of $\{x^k+1: x \in \mathbb{N}\}$ is multiplicatively irreducible. In this paper, we attempt to make their result effective by building a connection between this problem and the bipartite generalization of the well-studied Diophantine tuples. More precisely, given an integer $k \geq 3$ and a nonzero integer $n$, we call a pair of subsets of positive integers $(A,B)$ a bipartite Diophantine tuple with property $BD_k(n)$ if $|A|,|B| \geq 2$ and $AB+n \subset \{x^k: x \in \mathbb{N}\}$. We show that $\min \{|A|, |B|\} \ll \log |n|$, extending a celebrated work of Bugeaud and Dujella (where they considered the case $n=1$). We also provide an upper bound on $|A||B|$ in terms of $n$ and $k$ under the assumption $\min \{|A|,|B|\}\geq 4$ and $k \geq 6$. Specializing our techniques to Diophantine tuples, we significantly improve several results by Bérczes-Dujella-Hajdu-Luca, Bhattacharjee-Dixit-Saikia, and Dixit-Kim-Murty.

math.NT↗

arXiv2025

Multiplicative structure of shifted multiplicative subgroups and its applications to Diophantine tuples

In this paper, we investigate the multiplicative structure of a shifted multiplicative subgroup and its connections with additive combinatorics and the theory of Diophantine equations. Among many new results, we highlight our main contributions as follows. First, we show that if a nontrivial shift of a multiplicative subgroup $G$ contains a product set $AB$, then $|A||B|$ is essentially bounded by $|G|$, refining a well-known consequence of a classical result by Vinogradov. Second, we provide a sharper upper bound of $M_k(n)$, the largest size of a set such that each pairwise product of its elements is $n$ less than a $k$-th power, refining the recent result of Dixit, Kim, and Murty. One main ingredient in our proof is the first non-trivial upper bound on the maximum size of a generalized Diophantine tuple over a finite field. In addition, we determine the maximum size of an infinite family of generalized Diophantine tuples over finite fields with square order, which is of independent interest. We also make significant progress towards a conjecture of Sárközy on the multiplicative decompositions of shifted multiplicative subgroups. In particular, we prove that for almost all primes $p$, the set $\{x^2-1: x \in \mathbb{F}_p^*\} \setminus \{0\}$ cannot be decomposed as the product of two sets in $\mathbb{F}_p$ non-trivially.

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arXiv2024

An annotated bibliography for comparative prime number theory

The goal of this annotated bibliography is to record every publication on the topic of comparative prime number theory (through mid-2024) together with a summary of its results. We use a unified system of notation for the quantities being studied and for the hypotheses under which results are obtained.

math.NT↗

arXiv2024

$F$-Diophantine sets over finite fields

Let $k \geq 2$, $q$ be an odd prime power, and $F \in \mathbb{F}_q[x_1, \ldots, x_k]$ be a polynomial. An $F$-Diophantine set over a finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$ is a set $A \subset \mathbb{F}_q^*$ such that $F(a_1, a_2, \ldots, a_k)$ is a square in $\mathbb{F}_q$ whenever $a_1, a_2, \ldots, a_k$ are distinct elements in $A$. In this paper, we provide a strategy to construct a large $F$-Diophantine set, provided that $F$ has a nice property in terms of its monomial expansion. In particular, when $F=x_1x_2\ldots x_k+1$, our construction gives a $k$-Diophantine tuple over $\mathbb{F}_q$ with size $\gg_k \log q$, significantly improving the $Θ((\log q)^{1/(k-1)})$ lower bound in a recent paper by Hammonds-Kim-Miller-Nigam-Onghai-Saikia-Sharma.

math.NT↗

arXiv2024

Upper Bounds on Polynomial Root Separation

In this paper, we consider the relationship between the Mahler measure of a polynomial and its separation. In 1964, Mahler proved that if $f(x) \in \mathbb{Z}[x]$ is separable of degree $n$, then $\operatorname{sep}(f) \gg_n M(f)^{-(n-1)}$. This spurred further investigations into the implicit constant involved in that relation, and it led to questions about the optimal exponent on $M(f)$ in that relation. However, there has been relatively little study concerning upper bounds on $\operatorname{sep}(f)$ in terms of $M(f)$. In this paper, we prove that if $f(x) \in \mathbb{C}[x]$ has degree $n$, then $\operatorname{sep}(f) \ll n^{-1/2}M(f)^{1/(n-1)}$. Moreover, this bound is sharp up to the implied constant factor. We further investigate the constant factor under various additional assumptions on $f(x)$, for example, if it only has real roots.

math.NT↗

arXiv2024

A strengthening of McConnel's theorem on permutations over finite fields

Let $p$ be a prime, $q=p^n$, and $D \subset \mathbb{F}_q^*$. A celebrated result of McConnel states that if $D$ is a proper subgroup of $\mathbb{F}_q^*$, and $f:\mathbb{F}_q \to \mathbb{F}_q$ is a function such that $(f(x)-f(y))/(x-y) \in D$ whenever $x \neq y$, then $f(x)$ necessarily has the form $ax^{p^j}+b$. In this notes, we give a sufficient condition on $D$ to obtain the same conclusion on $f$. In particular, we show that McConnel's theorem extends if $D$ has small doubling.

math.NT↗

arXiv2024

Restricted sumsets in multiplicative subgroups

We establish the restricted sumset analogue of the celebrated conjecture of Sárközy on additive decompositions of the set of nonzero squares over a finite field. More precisely, we show that if $q>13$ is an odd prime power, then the set of nonzero squares in $\mathbb{F}_q$ cannot be written as a restricted sumset $A \hat{+} A$, extending a result of Shkredov. More generally, we study restricted sumsets in multiplicative subgroups over finite fields as well as restricted sumsets in perfect powers (over integers) motivated by a question of Erdős and Moser. We also prove an analogue of van Lint-MacWilliams' conjecture for restricted sumsets, which appears to be the first analogue of Erdős-Ko-Rado theorem in a family of Cayley sum graphs.

math.NT↗

arXiv2024

Distribution of power residues over shifted subfields and maximal cliques in generalized Paley graphs

We derive an asymptotic formula for the number of solutions in a given subfield to certain system of equations over finite fields. As an application, we construct new families of maximal cliques in generalized Paley graphs. Given integers $d\ge2$ and $q \equiv 1 \pmod d$, we show that for each positive integer $m$ such that $\operatorname{rad}(m) \mid \operatorname{rad}(d)$, there are maximal cliques of size approximately $q/m$ in the $d$-Paley graph defined on $\mathbb{F}_{q^d}$. We also confirm a conjecture of Goryainov, Shalaginov, and the second author on the maximality of certain cliques in generalized Paley graphs, as well as an analogous conjecture of Goryainov for Peisert graphs.

math.NT↗

arXiv2024

Any two-coloring of the plane contains monochromatic 3-term arithmetic progressions

A conjecture of Erdős, Graham, Montgomery, Rothschild, Spencer and Straus states that, with the exception of equilateral triangles, any two-coloring of the plane will have a monochromatic congruent copy of every three-point configuration. This conjecture is known only for special classes of configurations. In this manuscript, we confirm one of the most natural open cases; that is, every two-coloring of the plane admits a monochromatic congruent copy of any $3$-term arithmetic progression.

math.CO↗

arXiv2024

The subspace structure of maximum cliques in pseudo-Paley graphs from unions of cyclotomic classes

Blokhuis showed that all maximum cliques in Paley graphs of square order have a subfield structure. Recently, it has been shown that in Peisert-type graphs, all maximum cliques are affine subspaces, and yet some maximum cliques do not arise from a subfield. In this paper, we investigate the existence of a clique of size $\sqrt{q}$ with a subspace structure in pseudo-Paley graphs of order $q$ from unions of semi-primitive cyclotomic classes. We show that such a clique must have an equal contribution from each cyclotomic class and that most such pseudo-Paley graphs do not admit such cliques, suggesting that the Delsarte bound $\sqrt{q}$ on the clique number can be improved in general. We also prove that generalized Peisert graphs are not isomorphic to Paley graphs or Peisert graphs, confirming a conjecture of Mullin.

math.CO↗

arXiv2024

Improved upper bounds on Diophantine tuples with the property $D(n)$

Let $n$ be a non-zero integer. A set $S$ of positive integers is a Diophantine tuple with the property $D(n)$ if $ab+n$ is a perfect square for each $a,b \in S$ with $a \neq b$. It is of special interest to estimate the quantity $M_n$, the maximum size of a Diophantine tuple with the property $D(n)$. In this notes, we show the contribution of intermediate elements is $O(\log \log |n|)$, improving a result by Dujella. As a consequence, we deduce that $M_n\leq (2+o(1))\log |n|$, improving the best-known upper bound on $M_n$ by Becker and Murty.

math.NT↗

arXiv2024

On cyclotomic matrices involving Gauss sums over finite fields

Inspired by the works of L. Carlitz and Z.-W. Sun on cyclotomic matrices, in this paper, we investigate certain cyclotomic matrices involving Gauss sums over finite fields, which can be viewed as finite field analogues of certain matrices related to the Gamma function. For example, let $q=p^n$ be an odd prime power with $p$ prime and $n\in\mathbb{Z}^+$. Let $ζ_p=e^{2π{\bf i}/p}$ and let $χ$ be a generator of the group of all mutiplicative characters of the finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$. For the Gauss sum $$G_q(χ^{r})=\sum_{x\in\mathbb{F}_q}χ^{r}(x)ζ_p^{{\rm Tr}_{\mathbb{F}_q/\mathbb{F}_p}(x)},$$ we prove that $$\det \left[G_q(χ^{2i+2j})\right]_{0\le i,j\le (q-3)/2}=(-1)^{α_p}\left(\frac{q-1}{2}\right)^{\frac{q-1}{2}}2^{\frac{p^{n-1}-1}{2}},$$ where $$α_p= \begin{cases} 1 & \mbox{if}\ n\equiv 1\pmod 2, (p^2+7)/8 & \mbox{if}\ n\equiv 0\pmod 2. \end{cases}$$

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