F-sets of arbitrary finite width

Abstract

Ferraguti and Micheli conjectured that non-trivial $F$-sets of every prescribed width exist over each finite field. We prove the finite-width part of their conjecture over $\mathbb{F}_q$ for every $q\neq2,3$. Fix a suitable prime $\ell$. For a degree bound $D$, we consider the saturated family of all irreducible polynomials $g(X^{\ell^j})$ whose core $g$ has degree at most $D$. A factor-descent lemma shows that every irreducible factor arising from a shifted difference belongs to the same family and has strictly smaller core degree. The saturated family is therefore an $F$-set of finite width. Dirichlet's theorem for $\mathbb{F}_q[X]$ produces core ladders of arbitrary length, and Kummer lifting reproduces each ladder at infinitely many scales. These parallel ladders force the width to be sufficiently large; an appropriate tail of the nullity filtration then has the prescribed width.