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This question is motivated by the answer of Gowers to the question Erdos Conjecture on arithmetic progressions.

Question. (1)-Suppose $A \subset \mathbb{N}$ is such that Lim$_n$ $log(n) \cdot |A \cap \{ 1, \dots, n\}|\over{n}$=1. Does $A$ contain arithmetic progressions of arbitrary large finite length?

(2) What if we replace Lim with Limsup?

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The answer to both questions is almost certainly yes, but this has not been proven. It remains an open question even for progressions of length 3 (although the current bounds are pretty close).

For progressions of length greater than 3, the best bounds are due to Gowers, which stated in your terms give: if $$ \limsup \frac{(\log\log N)^{c_k}\lvert A\cap \{1,\ldots,N\}\rvert}{N}>0,$$

where $c_k>0$ is some constant depending only on $k$, then $A$ contains infinitely many arithmetic progressions of length $k$. For progressions of length 3 the $(\log\log N)^{c_k}$ can be replaced by $\log N(\log\log N)^{-4}$. For progressions of length 4 it becomes $(\log N)^{c}$, which is a recent result of Green and Tao. Obtaining even this kind of bound, let alone answering your question, for progressions of length 5 or longer seems quite far out of each at the moment.

Based on the constructions we know, something like the following is probably true: if

$$ \limsup \frac{\exp((\log N)^{c_k})\lvert A\cap \{1,\ldots,N\}\rvert}{N}>0$$

then $A$ contains infinitely many arithmetic progressions of length $k$.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for the answer. Does Lim$_k~c_k=\infty?$ $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 21, 2018 at 5:12
  • $\begingroup$ It actually goes the other way (because the result becomes weaker with $k\to\infty$): $\lim_{k\to\infty} c_k=0$. I believe it decays at least doubly exponentially in $k$ (with the current best bounds). $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 21, 2018 at 14:54

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