A note on the bilinear Bogolyubov theorem: Transverse and bilinear sets

Abstract:

A set $P\subset \mathbb {F}_p^n\times \mathbb {F}_p^n$ is called bilinear when it is the zero set of a family of linear and bilinear forms and transverse when it is stable under vertical and horizontal sums. A theorem of the first author provides a generalization of Bogolyubov’s theorem to the bilinear setting. Roughly speaking, it implies that any dense transverse set $P\subset \mathbb {F}_p^n\times \mathbb {F}_p^n$ contains a large bilinear set. In this paper, we elucidate the extent to which a transverse set is forced to be (and not only contain) a bilinear set.