Let
$p$ be a prime, and let
$f:\mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z}\to \mathbb{R}$ be a function with
$\mathbb{E}f=0$ and
$||\hat{f}|{{|}_{1}}\le 1$. Then
${{\min }_{x\in \mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z}}}|f\left( x \right)|=O{{\left( \log p \right)}^{-1/3+\in }}$. One should think of
$f$ as being “approximately continuous”; our result is then an “approximate intermediate value theorem”.
As an immediate consequence we show that if
$A\subseteq \mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z}$ is a set of cardinality
$\left\lfloor {p}/{2}\; \right\rfloor $, then
${{\sum }_{r}}\widehat{|\,{{1}_{A}}}\left( r \right)|\gg {{\left( \log p \right)}^{1/3-\in }}$. This gives a result on a “
$\,\bmod \,p$” analogue of Littlewood's well-known problem concerning the smallest possible
${{L}^{1}}$-norm of the Fourier transform of a set of
$n$ integers.
Another application is to answer a question of Gowers. If
$A\,\subseteq \,{\mathbb{Z}}/{p\mathbb{Z}}\;$ is a set of size
$\left\lfloor {p}/{2}\; \right\rfloor $, then there is some
$x\,\in \,\mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z}$ such that
$$||A\cap \left( A+x \right)\,-\,p/4|\,=o\left( p \right).$$