Intersection patterns and incidence theorems

Abstract: Let $A$ and $B$ be sets in a finite vector space. In this paper, we study the magnitude of the set $A\cap f(B)$, where $f$ runs through a set of transformations. More precisely, we will focus on the cases that the set of transformations is given by orthogonal matrices or orthogonal projections. One of the most important contributions of this paper is to show that if $A, B\subset \mathbb{F}_q^d$ satisfy some natural conditions then, for almost every $g\in O(d)$, there are at least $\gg q^d$ elements $z\in \mathbb{F}_q^d$ such that [|A\cap (g(B)+z)| \sim \frac{|A||B|}{q^d}.] This infers that $|A-gB|\gg q^d$ for almost every $g\in O(d)$. In the flavor of expanding functions, with $|A|\le |B|$, we also show that the image $A-gB$ grows exponentially. In two dimensions, the result simply says that if $|A|=q^x$ and $|B|=q^y$, as long as $0<x\le y\<2$, then for almost every $g\in O(2)$, we can always find $\epsilon=\epsilon(x, y)\>0$ such that $|A-gB|\gg |B|^{1+\epsilon}$. To prove these results, we need to develop a new and robust incidence bound between points and rigid motions by using a number of techniques including algebraic methods and discrete Fourier analysis. Our results are essentially sharp in odd dimensions.