On additive doubling and energy

We prove that every set $A\subset\mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z}$ with $\mathbb{E}_x\min(1_A*1_A(x),t)\le(2+\delta)t\mathbb{E}_x 1_A(a)$ is very close to an arithmetic progression. Here $p$ stands for a large prime and $\delta,t$ are small real numbers. This shows that the Vosper theorem is stable in the case of a single set.

The study of `structure' on subsets of abelian groups, with small `doubling constant', has been well studied in the last fifty years, from the time Freiman initiated the subject. In \cite{DF} Deshouillers and Freiman establish a structure theorem for subsets of $\n$ with small doubling constant. In the current article we provide an alternate proof of one of the main theorem of \cite{DF}. Also our proof leads to slight improvement of the theorems in \cite{DF}.

We prove a new class of low-energy decompositions which, amongst other consequences, imply that any finite set $A$ of integers may be written as $A = B \cup C$, where $B$ and $C$ are disjoint sets satisfying \[ |\{ (b_1, \dots, b_{2s}) \in B^{2s} \ | \ b_1 + \dots + b_{s} = b_{s+1} + \dots + b_{2s}\}| \ll_{s} |B|^{2s - (\log \log s)^{1/2 - o(1)}} \] and \[ |\{ (c_1, \dots, c_{2s}) \in C^{2s} \ | \ c_1 \dots c_{s} = c_{s+1} \dots c_{2s} \}| \ll_{s} |C|^{2s - (\log \log s)^{1/2...

Given a subset of real numbers $A$ with small product $AA$ we obtain a new upper bound for the additive energy of $A$. The proof uses a natural observation that level sets of convolutions of the characteristic function of $A$ have small product with $A$.

We prove the following result due to Hamidoune using an analytic approach. Suppose that A is a subset of a finite group G with |AA^{-1}| \leq (2-\varepsilon)|A|. Then there is a subgroup H of G and a set X of size O_\varepsilon(1) such that A \subset XH.

We prove that finite sets of real numbers satisfying $|AA| \leq |A|^{1+\epsilon}$ with sufficiently small $\epsilon > 0$ cannot have small additive bases nor can they be written as a set of sums $B+C$ with $|B|, |C| \geq 2$. The result can be seen as a real analog of the conjecture of S\'ark\"ozy that multiplicative subgroups of finite fields of prime order are additively irreducible.

Suppose that $A$ is a finite, nonempty subset of a cyclic group of either infinite or prime order. We show that if the difference set $A-A$ is ``not too large'', then there is a nonzero group element with at least as many as $(2+o(1))|A|^2/|A-A|$ representations as a difference of two elements of $A$; that is, the second largest number of representations is, essentially, twice the average. Here the coefficient $2$ is the best possible. We also prove continuous and multidime...

We give a comprehensive description of the sets $A$ in finite cyclic groups such that $|2A|<\frac94|A|$; namely, we show that any set with this property is densely contained in a (one-dimensional) coset progression. This improves earlier results of Deshouillers-Freiman and Balasubramanian-Pandey.

We investigate the structure of finite sets $A \subseteq \Z$ where $|A+A|$ is large. We present a combinatorial construction that serves as a counterexample to natural conjectures in the pursuit of an "anti-Freiman" theory in additive combinatorics. In particular, we answer a question along these lines posed by O'Bryant. Our construction also answers several questions about the nature of finite unions of $B_2[g]$ and $B^\circ_2[g]$ sets, and enables us to construct a $\Lambda...

This paper has been withdrawn by the author due to an error in the proof of Theorem 6.