Variants of the Kakeya problem over an algebraically closed field
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: Variants of the Kakeya problem over an algebraically closed field
zbMATH Open document ID: 1307.14084
author: Kaloyan Slavov
published in: Archiv der Mathematik
publication date: 2014-10-31T00:00:00Z
full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.4328
review text: The original Kakeya problem asks for the smallest subset of \(\mathbb{R}^2\) that contains a unit line segment in any direction. This problem has no solution as, by a famous result of \textit{A. S. Besicovitch} [Math. Z. 27, 312--320 (1927; JFM 53.0713.01)], there exist Kakeya sets of measure zero. Nonetheless, variants of Kakeya's problem sparked important mathematical research for a period of almost 100 years. Motivated by recent result on Kakeya sets over finite fields by \textit{Z. Dvir} [J. Am. Math. Soc. 22, No. 4, 1093--1097 (2009; Zbl 1202.52021)], this article investigates Kakeya-like problems in an algebraic context for subsets of affine space \(\mathbb{A}^n\) over an arbitrary algebraically closed field. Call a subset ``Kakeya'' if it contains a line in every direction. The author considers the extreme case, where the Kakeya set is the union of finitely many locally closed sets and an open set whose complement is an irreducible hypersurface \(V(g)\) of degree \(d\). He shows that for every degree \(d\), there exist Kakeya sets in \(\mathbb{A}^3\) that are composed of the complement of \(V(g)\) and just two further points. If the complement of an irreducible hypersurface \(V(g) \subset \mathbb{A}^3\) can be made Kakeya by adding finitely many points, the ideal curve of \(V(g)\) has to satisfy some rather particular conditions. Call an \(n\)-dimensional subvariety \(X\) of \(\mathbb{A}^N\) ``Kakeya'' if the dimension of the set of all directions of lines contained in \(X\) equals \(n-1\). Examples of Kakeya subvarieties in this sense are hypersurfaces of degree \(d \leq N-1\). The author constructs a morphism \(\pi: X \to \mathbb{A}^n\) that maps the lines in a Kakeya subvariety \(X\) to lines in \(\mathbb{A}^n\) whose directions contain an open set.
reviewed by: Hans-Peter Schröcker
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 14R05
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 14N05
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 14N15
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 14N20
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 05B05
zbMATH DE Number: 6363064
zbMATH Keywords: Kakeya problem
zbMATH Keywords: constructible set
zbMATH Keywords: Bezout's theorem
zbMATH Keywords: intersection multiplicity
zbMATH Keywords: flexy surface
zbMATH Keywords: funny curve
zbMATH Keywords: projective cone
zbMATH Keywords: Fano variety
MaRDI profile type: Publication
OpenAlex ID: W3104500276
arXiv ID: 1410.4328
cites work: KAKEYA SETS OVER NON‐ARCHIMEDEAN LOCAL RINGS
cites work: On the size of Kakeya sets in finite fields
cites work: Varieties with many lines
cites work: An improved lower bound on the size of Kakeya sets over finite fields
cites work: An algebraic geometry version of the Kakeya problem
cites work: An improved bound for Kakeya type maximal functions
DOI: 10.1007/S00013-014-0685-6
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description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 6363064