We prove quantitative bounds for the inverse theorem for Gowers uniformity norms $\mathsf {U}^5$ and $\mathsf {U}^6$ in $\mathbb {F}_2^n$. The proof starts from an earlier partial result of Gowers and the author which reduces the inverse problem to a study of algebraic properties of certain multilinear forms. The bulk of the work in this paper is a study of the relationship between the natural actions of $\operatorname {Sym}_4$ and $\operatorname {Sym}_5$ on the space of multilinear forms and the partition rank, using an algebraic version of regularity method. Along the way, we give a positive answer to a conjecture of Tidor about approximately symmetric multilinear forms in five variables, which is known to be false in the case of four variables. Finally, we discuss the possible generalization of the argument for $\mathsf {U}^k$ norms.

Let $V$ be a finite-dimensional vector space over $\mathbb{F}_p$. We say that a multilinear form $\alpha \colon V^k \to \mathbb{F}_p$ in $k$ variables is $d$-approximately symmetric if the partition rank of difference $\alpha (x_1, \ldots, x_k) - \alpha (x_{\pi (1)}, \ldots, x_{\pi (k)})$ is at most $d$ for every permutation $\pi \in \textrm{Sym}_k$. In a work concerning the inverse theorem for the Gowers uniformity $\|\!\cdot\! \|_{\mathsf{U}^4}$ norm in the case of low characteristic, Tidor conjectured that any $d$-approximately symmetric multilinear form $\alpha \colon V^k \to \mathbb{F}_p$ differs from a symmetric multilinear form by a multilinear form of partition rank at most $O_{p,k,d}(1)$ and proved this conjecture in the case of trilinear forms. In this paper, somewhat surprisingly, we show that this conjecture is false. In fact, we show that approximately symmetric forms can be quite far from the symmetric ones, by constructing a multilinear form $\alpha \colon \mathbb{F}_2^n \times \mathbb{F}_2^n \times \mathbb{F}_2^n \times \mathbb{F}_2^n \to \mathbb{F}_2$ which is 3-approximately symmetric, while the difference between $\alpha$ and any symmetric multilinear form is of partition rank at least $\Omega (\sqrt [3]{n})$.