The novel approach to the polynomial method introduced by Croot, Lev, and Pach in
[CLP17] has led to rapid progress in a range of problems in extremal combinatorics: for
instance, a new upper bound for the cap set probem [EG17], bounds for complexity of
matrix-multiplication methods based on elementary abelian groups [BCC
+
16], bounds for
the Erd˝os-Szemeredi sunflower conjecture [NS16], and polynomial bounds for the arithmetic
triangle removal lemma [FL16]. In many of the applications, the original bound on cap sets
in [EG17] does not suffice for applications: for instance, in [BCC
+
16] and [FL16] one needs
to bound the size of a multi-colored sum-free set, a somewhat more general object.