A strictly increasing sequence of positive integers is called a
slightly curved sequence with small error
if the sequence can be well-approximated by a function whose second derivative goes to zero faster than or equal to
![$1/x^\alpha$](abs/img1.gif)
for some
![$\alpha0$](abs/img2.gif)
.
In this paper, we prove that arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions are contained in the graph of a slightly curved sequence with small error.
Furthermore, we extend Szemerédi's theorem to a theorem about
slightly curved sequences.
As a corollary,
it follows that the graph of the sequence
![$\{\lfloor{n^a}\rfloor\}_{n\in A}$](abs/img3.gif)
contains arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions
for every
![$1\le a2$](abs/img4.gif)
and every
![$A\subset\mathbb{N} $](abs/img5.gif)
with positive upper
density.
Using this corollary, we show that
the set
![$\{ \lfloor{\lfloor{p^{1/b}}\rfloor^a}\rfloor
\vert \text{$p$\space prime} \}$](abs/img6.gif)
contains arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions for every
![$1\le a2$](abs/img4.gif)
and
b>1.
We also prove that, for every
![$a\ge2$](abs/img7.gif)
,
the graph of
![$\{\lfloor{n^a}\rfloor\}_{n=1}^\infty$](abs/img8.gif)
does not contain any arithmetic progressions of length 3.
Received October 22 2018; revised versions received February 21 2019;
February 22 2019.
Published in Journal of Integer Sequences,
February 22 2019.