On the size of Nikodym sets in finite fields

Liangpan Li

Published 2008-03-25, updated 2008-04-26Version 3

Let $\mathbb{F}_q$ denote a finite field of $q$ elements. Define a set $B\subset\mathbb{F}_q^n$ to be Nikodym if for each $x\in B^{c}$, there exists a line $L$ such that $L\cap B^c=\{x\}.$ The main purpose of this note is to show that the size of every Nikodym set is at least $C_n\cdot q^n$, where $C_n$ depends only on $n$.