The near-quadratic energy conjecture for convex sets

Let ARA\subset\mathbb{R} be a finite convex set, meaning that if A={a1<<an}A=\{a_1<\cdots<a_n\} then the consecutive differences ai+1aia_{i+1}-a_i are strictly increasing. Define the additive energy by

E(A)={(a,b,c,d)A4:a+b=c+d}.E(A)=\left|\{(a,b,c,d)\in A^4:a+b=c+d\}\right|.

Near-quadratic energy conjecture. If ARA\subset\mathbb{R} is convex, then

E(A)A2+o(1).E(A)\leq |A|^{2+o(1)}.

The trivial solutions already give E(A)A2E(A)\geq |A|^2, while the best-known general upper bound is E(A)A123/50+o(1)E(A)\ll |A|^{123/50+o(1)}. No construction is known with energy at least A2+c|A|^{2+c} for a fixed positive cc, so the conjecture remains open.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Thomas F. Bloom, Jakob Führer and Oliver Roche-Newton, “Additive structure in convex sets”, arXiv:2509.01568 (2025).

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