Expanding Polynomials and Pairs of Polynomials in Characteristic 0

Abstract

We begin a generalized study of sum-product type phenomenon in different fields by considering pairs $P(x,y)$ and $Q(x,y)$ of two variable polynomials that simultaneously exhibit small symmetric expansion. Our first result is that such $P(x,y)$ and $Q(x,y)$ over $\mathbb{R}$ and $\mathbb{C}$ have very similar structure, obtained by employing semi-algebraic geometry/o-minimality. Then using model-theoretic transfer and basic Galois theory we deduce results for fields of characteristic $0$ and characteristic $p$ when $p$ is large. We obtain as corollaries a generalization of Elekes-Rónyai type structural results to arbitrary characteristic 0 fields, and a strengthening of these classic results in a symmetric case of natural interest. We note a related bound of $5/4$ in the exponent for the sum-product problem in finite fields of large characteristic, although a lower bound for this characteristic cannot be computed from our methods.

This version contains some errors, we decide to withdraw it. Some of the results in this version is now contained in arxiv:1910.04904