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Ben Green's Open Problem 29

References:

    Ben Green's Open Problem 29

    [Gr12] Green, Ben. "What is... an approximate group." Notices Amer. Math. Soc 59.5 (2012): 655-656.

    [Br13] Breuillard, Emmanuel, Ben Green, and Terence Tao. "Small doubling in groups." Erdős Centennial. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2013. 129-151.

    [Sa10] Sanders, Tom. "On a nonabelian Balog–Szemerédi-type lemma." Journal of the Australian Mathematical Society 89.1 (2010): 127-132.

    [CrSi10] Croot, Ernie, and Olof Sisask. "A probabilistic technique for finding almost-periods of convolutions." Geometric and functional analysis 20.6 (2010): 1367-1396.

@[expose] public sectionopen scoped Pointwisenamespace Green29

Suppose that $A$ is a $K$-approximate group (not necessarily abelian). Is there $S \subset A$, $|S| \gg K^{-O(1)} |A|$, with $S^8 \subset A^4$?

The answer is negative. A counterexample is given, for arbitrarily large finite groups H, by A = ({-1} × H) ∪ ({1} × H) ∪ {(0, 1)} in Multiplicative ℤ × H.

@[category research solved, AMS 20, formal_proof using lean4 at "https://github.com/KitaKen1/green-29-counterexample/blob/1cbf80c3d5a333b2b79c203c0d60129924c8c712/lean/Green29FC.lean#L280-L287"] theorem green_29 : answer(False) C c : , 0 < C 0 < c {G : Type*} [Group G] [DecidableEq G] (K : ) (A : Finset G), 1 K IsApproximateSubgroup K (A : Set G) S A, C * K ^ (-c) * (A.card : ) (S.card : ) S ^ 8 A ^ 4 := False C c, 0 < C 0 < c {G : Type u_1} [inst : Group G] [inst_1 : DecidableEq G] (K : ) (A : Finset G), 1 K IsApproximateSubgroup K A S A, C * K ^ (-c) * A.card S.card S ^ 8 A ^ 4 All goals completed! 🐙

Such a conclusion is known with $|S| \gg_K |A|$ [Br13 Problem 6.5, CrSi10, Sa10].

@[category research solved, AMS 20] theorem green_29.variant : K : , 1 K c : , 0 < c -- Allow c to depend on K. {G : Type*} [Group G] [DecidableEq G] (A : Finset G), IsApproximateSubgroup K (A : Set G) S : Finset G, -- No S ⊆ A requirement in this variant. c * (A.card : ) (S.card : ) S ^ 8 A ^ 4 := (K : ), 1 K c, 0 < c {G : Type u_1} [inst : Group G] [inst_1 : DecidableEq G] (A : Finset G), IsApproximateSubgroup K A S, c * A.card S.card S ^ 8 A ^ 4 All goals completed! 🐙end Green29