Let $\BZ_p$ be the finite field of prime order $p$ and $A$ be a subset of $\BZ_p$. We prove several sharp results about the following two basic questions:
(1) When can one represent zero as a sum of distinct elements of $A$ ?
(2) When can one represent every element of $\BZ_p$ as a sum of distinct elements of $A$ ?
Let $S$ and $T$ be subsets of $\mathbf{F}_q^n$. We show there are subsets $S'$ of $S$ and $T'$ of $T$ such that $S+T$ is the union of $S+T'$ and $S'+T$, with $|S'| + |T'|$ bounded by $c^n$ with $c < q$. The proof relies on the method of Croot-Lev-Pach and Ellenberg-Gijswijt on the cap set problem, together with a result of Meshulam on linear spaces of low-rank matrices. The result is a modest generalization of the recent bounds on (single-colored and multi-colored) sum-free sets by the author and others.
We develop novel techniques which allow us to prove a diverse range of results relating to subset sums and complete sequences of positive integers, including solutions to several longstanding open problems. These include: solutions to the three problems of Burr and Erdős on Ramsey complete sequences, for which Erdős later offered a combined total of \$350; analogous results for the new notion of density complete sequences; the solution to a conjecture of Alon and Erdős on the minimum number of colors needed to color the positive integers less than $n$ so that $n$ cannot be written as a monochr…
We show that in any two-coloring of the positive integers there is a color for which the set of positive integers that can be represented as a sum of distinct elements with this color has upper logarithmic density at least $(2+\sqrt{3})/4$ and this is best possible. This answers a forty-year-old question of Erdős.
We present two short proofs giving the best known asymptotic lower bound for the maximum element in a set of $n$ positive integers with distinct subset sums.
Let $\mathcal{A}$ be a sequence of $rk$ terms which is made up of $k$ distinct integers each appearing exactly $r$ times in $\mathcal{A}$. The sum of all terms of a subsequence of $\mathcal{A}$ is called a subsequence sum of $\mathcal{A}$. For a nonnegative integer $α\leq rk$, let $Σ_α (\mathcal{A})$ be the set of all subsequence sums of $\mathcal{A}$ that correspond to the subsequences of length $α$ or more. When $r=1$, we call the subsequence sums as subset sums and we write $Σ_α (A)$ for $Σ_α (\mathcal{A})$. In this article, using some simple combinatorial arguments, we establish optimal lo…
Balog and Wooley have recently proved that any subset $A$ of either real numbers or of a prime finite field can be decomposed into two parts $U$ and $V$, one of small additive energy and the other of small multiplicative energy. In the case of arbitrary finite fields, we obtain an analogue that under some natural restrictions for a rational function $f$ both the additive energies of $U$ and $f(V)$ are small. Our method is based on bounds of character sums which leads to the restriction $\# A > q^{1/2}$ where $q$ is the field size. The bound is optimal, up to logarithmic factors, when $\# A \ge…
Let $A \subset \mathbb R$ and $G \subset A \times A$. We prove that, for any $λ\in \mathbb R \setminus \{-1,0,1\}$, \[ \max \{|A+_G A|, |A+_G λA|, |A\cdot_G A|\} \gg |G|^{6/11}. \]
A finite set $A$ of integers is square-sum-free if there is no subset of $A$ sums up to a square. In 1986, Erd\H os posed the problem of determining the largest cardinality of a square-sum-free subset of $\{1, ..., n \}$. Answering this question, we show that this maximum cardinality is of order $n^{1/3+o(1)}$.
To partition a sequence of n integers into subsets with prescribed sums is an NP-hard problem in general. In this paper we present an efficient solution for the homogeneous version of this problem; i.e. where the elements in each subset add up to the same sum.
In this paper we establish connections between covers of $\mathbb Z$ by residue classes and subset sums in a field. Suppose that $A_0=\{a_s(n_s)\}_{s=0}^k$ covers each integer at least $p$ times with the residue class $a_0(n_0)=a_0+n_0\mathbb Z$ irredundant, where $p$ is a prime not dividing any of $n_1,\ldots,n_k$. Let $m_1,\ldots,m_k\in\mathbb Z$ be relatively prime to $n_1,\ldots,n_k$ respectively. For any $c,c_1,\ldots,c_k\in\mathbb Z/p\mathbb Z$ with $c_1\cdots c_k\not=0$, we show that the set $$\bigg\{\bigg\{\sum_{s\in I}\frac{m_s}{n_s}\bigg\}:\, I\subseteq\{1,\ldots,k\} \ \mbox{and}\ \s…
Denoting by Sigma(S) the set of subset sums of a subset S of a finite abelian group G, we prove that |Sigma(S)| >= |S|(|S|+2)/4-1 whenever S is symmetric, |G| is odd and Sigma(S) is aperiodic. Up to an additive constant of 2 this result is best possible, and we obtain the stronger (exact best possible) bound in almost all cases. We prove similar results in the case |G| is even. Our proof requires us to extend a theorem of Olson on the number of subset sums of anti-symmetric subsets S from the case of Z_p to the case of a general finite abelian group. To do so, we adapt Olson's method using a g…
Let $\mathcal{A}$ be a finite set of integers, and let $h\mathcal{A}$ denote the $h$-fold sumset of $\mathcal{A}$. Let $(h\mathcal{A})^{(t)}$ be subset of $h\mathcal{A}$ consisting of all integers that have at least $t$ representations as a sum of $h$ elements of $\mathcal{A}$. The structure of the set $(h\mathcal{A})^{(t)}$ is completely determined for all $h \geq h_t$.
For a subset A of a finite abelian group G we define Sigma(A)={sum_{a\in B}a:B\subset A}. In the case that Sigma(A) has trivial stabiliser, one may deduce that the size of Sigma(A) is at least quadratic in |A|; the bound |Sigma(A)|>= |A|^{2}/64 has recently been obtained by De Vos, Goddyn, Mohar and Samal. We improve this bound to the asymptotically best possible result |Sigma(A)|>= (1/4-o(1))|A|^{2}. We also study a related problem in which A is any subset of Z_{n} with all elements of A coprime to n; it has recently been shown, by Vu, that if such a set A has the property Sigma(A) is not Z_{…
Let $A$ be a subset of $\mathbb{Z} / N\mathbb{Z}$ and let $\mathcal{R}$ be the set of large Fourier coefficients of $A$. Properties of $\mathcal{R}$ have been studied in works of M.-- C. Chang, B. Green and the author. In the paper we obtain some new results on sets of large exponential sums.
Let $\left\{a_1, \dots, a_n\right\} \subset \mathbb{N}$ be a set of positive integers, $a_n$ denoting the largest element, so that for any two of the $2^n$ subsets the sum of all elements is distinct. Erdős asked whether this implies $a_n \geq c \cdot 2^n$ for some universal $c>0$. We prove, slightly extending a result of Elkies, that for any $a_1, \dots, a_n \in \mathbb{R}_{>0}$ $$ \int_{\mathbb{R}} \left( \frac{\sin{ x}}{ x} \right)^2 \prod_{i=1}^{n} \cos{( a_i x)^2} dx \geq \fracπ{2^{n}}$$ with equality if and only if all subset sums are $1-$separated. This leads to a new proof of the curre…
Let $\{a_1, . . . , a_n\}$ be a set of positive integers with $a_1 < \dots < a_n$ such that all $2^n$ subset sums are distinct. A famous conjecture by Erdős states that $a_n>c\cdot 2^n$ for some constant $c$, while the best result known to date is of the form $a_n>c\cdot 2^n/\sqrt{n}$. In this paper, we weaken the condition by requiring that only sums corresponding to subsets of size smaller than or equal to $λn$ be distinct. For this case, we derive lower and upper bounds on the smallest possible value of $a_n$.
We show that if a subset A of {1,...,N} does not contain any solutions to the equation x+y+z=3w with the variables not all equal, then A has size at most exp(-c(log N)^{1/7}) N, where c > 0 is some absolute constant. In view of Behrend's construction, this bound is of the right shape: the exponent 1/7 cannot be replaced by any constant larger than 1/2. We also establish a related result, which says that sumsets A+A+A contain long arithmetic progressions if A is a subset of {1,...,N}, or high-dimensional subspaces if A is a subset of a vector space over a finite field, even if A has density of …
In this paper we give a different approach to determining the cardinality of $h$-fold sumsets $hA$ when $A\subset \mathbb{Z}^d$ has $d+2$ elements. This enables us to provide more general result with a shorter and simpler proof. We also obtain an upper bound for the value of $|hA|$ when $A\subset \mathbb{Z}^d$ is a set of $d+3$ elements with simplicial hull.
In this paper we show that if $A$ is a subset of the primes with positive relative density $δ$, then $A+A$ must have positive upper density $C_1δe^{-C_2(\log(1/δ))^{2/3}(\log\log(1/δ))^{1/3}}$ in $\mathbb{N}$. Our argument applies the techniques developed by Green and Green-Tao used to find arithmetic progressions in the primes, in combination with a result on sums of subsets of the multiplicative subgroup of the integers modulo $M$.
Let $A, B\subseteq \mathbb{Z}$ be finite, nonempty subsets with $\min A=\min B=0$, and let $$δ(A,B)={\begin{array}{ll} 1 & \hbox{if} A\subseteq B, 0 & \hbox{otherwise.} If $\max B\leq \max A\leq |A|+|B|-3$ and \label{one}|A+B|\leq |A|+2|B|-3-δ(A,B), then we show $A+B$ contains an arithmetic progression with difference 1 and length $|A|+|B|-1$. As a corollary, if \eqref{one} holds, $\max(B)\leq \max(A)$ and either $\gcd(A)=1$ or else $\gcd(A+B)=1$ and $|A+B|\leq 2|A|+|B|-3$, then $A+B$ contains an arithmetic progression with difference 1 and length $|A|+|B|-1$.
Let $d$ be a positive integer and $U \subset \mathbb{Z}^d$ finite. We study $$β(U) : = \inf_{\substack{A , B \neq \emptyset \\ \text{finite}}} \frac{|A+B+U|}{|A|^{1/2}{|B|^{1/2}}},$$ and other related quantities. We employ tensorization, which is not available for the doubling constant, $|U+U|/|U|$. For instance, we show $$β(U) = |U|,$$ whenever $U$ is a subset of $\{0,1\}^d$. Our methods parallel those used for the Prékopa-Leindler inequality, an integral variant of the Brunn-Minkowski inequality.
Let $G$ be an additive abelian group and $S\subset G$ a subset. Let $Σ(S)$ denote the set of group elements which can be expressed as a sum of a nonempty subset of $S$. We say $S$ is zero-sum free if $0 \not\in Σ(S)$. It was conjectured by R.B.~Eggleton and P.~Erdös in 1972 and proved by W.~Gao et. al. in 2008 that $|Σ(S)|\geq 19$ provided that $S$ is a zero-sum free subset of an abelian group $G$ with $|S|=6$. In this paper, we determined the structure of zero-sum free set $S$ where $|S|=6$ and $|Σ(S)|=19$.
Let $p$ be an odd prime, and let $a$ be a rational $p$-adic integer with $a\not\equiv 0\pmod p$. In this paper, using WZ method we establish the congruences for $\sum_{k=0}^{p-1} \binom ak^2(-1)^k(1-\frac 2ak)$ modulo $p^2$ and $\sum_{k=0}^{p-1} \binom ak^r(1-\frac 2ak)^s$ modulo $p^4$, where $r\in\{3,4\}$ and $s\in\{1,3\}$.
A more sums than differences (MSTD) set is a finite subset S of the integers such |S+S| > |S-S|. We show that the probability that a uniform random subset of {0, 1, ..., n} is an MSTD set approaches some limit rho > 4.28 x 10^{-4}. This improves the previous result of Martin and O'Bryant that there is a lower limit of at least 2 x 10^{-7}. Monte Carlo experiments suggest that rho \approx 4.5 \x 10^{-4}. We present a deterministic algorithm that can compute rho up to arbitrary precision. We also describe the structure of a random MSTD subset S of {0, 1, ..., n}. We formalize the intuition that …
We consider restricted sumsets over field $F$. Let\begin{align*}C=\{a_1+\cdots+a_n:a_1\in A_1,\ldots,a_n\in A_n, a_i-a_j\notin S_{ij}\ \text{if}\ i\not=j\},\end{align*} where $S_{ij}(1\leqslant i\not=j\leqslant n)$ are finite subsets of $F$ with cardinality $m$, and $A_1,\ldots, A_n$ are finite nonempty subsets of $F$ with $|A_1|=\cdots=|A_n|=k$. Let $p(F)$ be the additive order of the identity of $F$. It is proved that $|C|\geqslant \min\{p(F),\ \ n(k-1)-mn(n-1)+1\}$ if $p(F)>mn$. This conclusion refines the result of Hou and Sun.
We consider the problem of sums of dilates in groups of prime order. We show that given $A\subset \Z{p}$ of sufficiently small density then $$\big| λ_{1}A+λ_{2}A+...+ λ_{k}A \big| \,\ge\,\bigg(\sum_{i}|λ_{i}|\bigg)|A|- o(|A|),$$ whereas on the other hand, for any $ε>0$, we construct subsets of density $1/2-ε$ such that $|A+λA|\leq (1-δ)p$, showing that there is a very different behaviour for subsets of large density.
Let $A$ be a multiset with elements in an abelian group. Let $FS(A)$ be the multiset containing the $2^{|A|}$ sums of all subsets of $A$. We study the reconstruction problem ``Given $FS(A)$, is it possible to identify $A$?'', and we give a satisfactory answer for all abelian groups. We prove that, up to identifying multisets through a natural equivalence relation, the function $A \mapsto FS(A)$ is injective (and thus the reconstruction problem is solvable) if and only if every order $n$ of a torsion element of the abelian group satisfies a certain number-theoretical property linked to the mult…
We present a variety of new results on finite sets A of integers for which the sumset A+A is larger than the difference set A-A, so-called MSTD (more sums than differences) sets. First we show that there is, up to affine transformation, a unique MSTD subset of {\bf Z} of size 8. Secondly, starting from some examples of size 9, we present several new constructions of infinite families of MSTD sets. Thirdly we show that for every fixed ordered pair of non-negative integers (j,k), as n -> \infty a positive proportion of the subsets of {0,1,2,...,n} satisfy |A+A| = (2n+1) - j, |A-A| = (2n+1) - 2k.
A $k$-sum of a set $A\subseteq \mathbb{Z}$ is an integer that may be expressed as a sum of $k$ distinct elements of $A$. How large can the ratio of the number of $(k+1)$-sums to the number of $k$-sums be? Writing $k\wedge A$ for the set of $k$-sums of $A$ we prove that \[ \frac{|(k+1)\wedge A|}{|k\wedge A|}\, \le \, \frac{|A|-k}{k+1} \] whenever $|A|\ge (k^{2}+7k)/2$. The inequality is tight -- the above ratio being attained when $A$ is a geometric progression. This answers a question of Ruzsa.
Let G be any additive abelian group with cyclic torsion subgroup, and let A, B and C be finite subsets of G with cardinality n>0. We show that there is a numbering {a_i}_{i=1}^n of the elements of A, a numbering {b_i}_{i=1}^n of the elements of B and a numbering {c_i}_{i=1}^n of the elements of C, such that all the sums a_i+b_i+c_i (i=1,...,n) are distinct. Consequently, each subcube of the Latin cube formed by the Cayley addition table of Z/NZ contains a Latin transversal. This additive theorem can be further extended via restricted sumsets in a field.
The classical Cauchy--Davenport inequality gives a lower bound for the size of the sum of two subsets of ${\mathbb Z}_p$, where $p$ is a prime. Our main aim in this paper is to prove a considerable strengthening of this inequality, where we take only a small number of points from each of the two subsets when forming the sum. One of our results is that there is an absolute constant $c>0$ such that if $A$ and $B$ are subsets of ${\mathbb Z}_p$ with $|A|=|B|=n\le p/3$ then there are subsets $A'\subset A$ and $B'\subset B$ with $|A'|=|B'|\le c \sqrt{n}$ such that $|A'+B'|\ge 2n-1$. In fact, we sho…
We show that there exist convex $n$-gons $P$ and $Q$ such that the largest convex polygon in the Minkowski sum $P+Q$ has size $Θ(n\log n)$. This matches an upper bound of Tiwary.
Let $(G,+)$ be an abelian group and consider a subset $A \subseteq G$ with $|A|=k$. Given an ordering $(a_1, \ldots, a_k)$ of the elements of $A$, define its {\em partial sums} by $s_0 = 0$ and $s_j = \sum_{i=1}^j a_i$ for $1 \leq j \leq k$. We consider the following conjecture of Alspach: For any cyclic group $\Z_n$ and any subset $A \subseteq \Z_n \setminus \{0\}$ with $s_k \neq 0$, it is possible to find an ordering of the elements of $A$ such that no two of its partial sums $s_i$ and $s_j$ are equal for $0 \leq i < j \leq k$. We show that Alspach's Conjecture holds for prime $n$ when $k \g…
Let $f(n,r)$ denote the maximum number of colourings of $A \subseteq \lbrace 1,\ldots,n\rbrace$ with $r$ colours such that each colour class is sum-free. Here, a sum is a subset $\lbrace x,y,z\rbrace$ such that $x+y=z$. We show that $f(n,2) = 2^{\lceil n/2\rceil}$, and describe the extremal subsets. Further, using linear optimisation, we asymptotically determine the logarithm of $f(n,r)$ for $r \leq 5$. Similar results were obtained by Hàn and Jiménez in the setting of finite abelian groups.
Given a finite subset A of an abelian group G, we study the set k \wedge A of all sums of k distinct elements of A. In this paper, we prove that |k \wedge A| >= |A| for all k in {2,...,|A|-2}, unless k is in {2,|A|-2} and A is a coset of an elementary 2-subgroup of G. Furthermore, we characterize those finite subsets A of G for which |k \wedge A| = |A| for some k in {2,...,|A|-2}. This result answers a question of Diderrich. Our proof relies on an elementary property of proper edge-colourings of the complete graph.
Let $\vec{w} = (w_1,\dots, w_n) \in \mathbb{R}^{n}$. We show that for any $n^{-2}\leε\le 1$, if \[\#\{\vecξ \in \{0,1\}^{n}: \langle \vecξ, \vec{w} \rangle = τ\} \ge 2^{-εn}\cdot 2^{n}\] for some $τ\in \mathbb{R}$, then \[\#\{\langle \vecξ, \vec{w} \rangle : \vecξ \in \{0,1\}^{n}\} \le 2^{O(\sqrtεn)}.\] This exponentially improves the $ε$ dependence in a recent result of Nederlof, Pawlewicz, Swennenhuis, and Węgrzycki and leads to a similar improvement in the parameterized (by the number of bins) runtime of bin packing.
Let $\mathcal{P} \subset \mathbb{R}^{d}$ and $\mathcal{Q} \subset \mathbb{R}^e$ be integral convex polytopes of dimension $d$ and $e$ which contain the origin of $\mathbb{R}^{d}$ and $\mathbb{R}^e$, respectively. In the present paper, under some assumptions, the necessary and sufficient condition for the free sum of $\mathcal{P}$ and $\mathcal{Q}$ to possess the integer decomposition property will be presented.
In a recent paper \cite{Gl} A. Glibichuk proved that if $A,B$ are subsets of an arbitrary finite filed $\F_q$, such that $|A||B|>q$, then $16AB = \F_q$. We improve this to $10AB = \F_q.$
A subset of an abelian group is {\em sequenceable} if there is an ordering $(x_1, \ldots, x_k)$ of its elements such that the partial sums $(y_0, y_1, \ldots, y_k)$, given by $y_0 = 0$ and $y_i = \sum_{j=1}^i x_i$ for $1 \leq i \leq k$, are distinct, with the possible exception that we may have $y_k = y_0 = 0$. We demonstrate the sequenceability of subsets of size $k$ of $\mathbb{Z}_n \setminus \{ 0 \}$ when $n = mt$ in many cases, including when $m$ is either prime or has all prime factors larger than $k! /2$ for $k \leq 11$ and $t \leq 5$ and for $k=12$ and $t \leq 4$. We obtain similar, but…
In this paper we propose a conjecture concerning partial sums of an arbitrary finite subset of an abelian group, that naturally arises investigating simple Heffter systems. Then, we show its connection with related open problems and we present some results about the validity of these conjectures.
We are interested in ordering the elements of a subset A of the non-zero integers modulo n in such a way that all the partial sums are distinct. We conjecture that this can always be done and we prove various partial results about this problem.