The Haight-Ruzsa method for sets with more differences than multiple sums

For positive integers $n$, $m$, and $h$, we let $\rho \hat{\;}(\mathbb{Z}_n, m, h)$ denote the minimum size of the $h$-fold restricted sumset among all $m$-subsets of the cyclic group of order $n$. The value of $\rho \hat{\;}(\mathbb{Z}_n, m, h)$ was conjectured for prime values of $n$ and $h=2$ by Erd\H{o}s and Heilbronn in the 1960s; Dias da Silva and Hamidoune proved the conjecture in 1994 and generalized it for an arbitrary $h$, but little is known about the case when $n$...

We prove that if $\varepsilon(m)\to 0$ arbitrarily slowly, then for almost all $m$ and any $A\subset\mathbb{Z}_m$ such that $A-A$ does not contain non-zero quadratic residues we have $|A|\leq m^{1/2-\varepsilon(m)}.$

Given $h,g \in \mathbb{N}$, we write a set $X \subseteq \mathbb{Z}$ to be a $B_{h}^{+}[g]$ set if for any $n \in \mathbb{R}$, the number of solutions to the additive equation $n = x_1 + \dots + x_h$ with $x_1, \dots, x_h \in X$ is at most $g$, where we consider two such solutions to be the same if they differ only in the ordering of the summands. We define a multiplicative $B_{h}^{\times}[g]$ set analogously. In this paper, we prove, amongst other results, that there exists s...

Let $A$ be a set in an abelian group $G$. For integers $h,r \geq 1$ the generalized $h$-fold sumset, denoted by $h^{(r)}A$, is the set of sums of $h$ elements of $A$, where each element appears in the sum at most $r$ times. If $G=\mathbb{Z}$ lower bounds for $|h^{(r)}A|$ are known, as well as the structure of the sets of integers for which $|h^{(r)}A|$ is minimal. In this paper we generalize this result by giving a lower bound for $|h^{(r)}A|$ when $G=\mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z}$ ...

Let $h$ be a positive integer and $A, B_1, B_2,\dots, B_h$ be finite sets in a commutative group. We bound $|A+B_1+...+B_h|$ from above in terms of $|A|, |A+B_1|,\dots,|A+B_h|$ and $h$. Extremal examples, which demonstrate that the bound is asymptotically sharp in all the parameters, are furthermore provided.

Consider the sets of integers $A$ that avoid any arrangement of $g$ congruent $h$-subsets. Our findings refine and improve upon some results by Erd\H{o}s and Harzheim about these sets.

In this note we find the optimal lower bound for the size of the sumsets $HA$ and $H\,\hat{}A$ over finite sets $H, A$ of nonnegative integers, where $HA = \bigcup_{h\in H} hA$ and $H\,\hat{}A = \bigcup_{h\in H} h\,\hat{}A$. We also find the underlying algebraic structure of the sets $A$ and $H$ for which the size of the sumsets $HA$ and $H\,\hat{}A$ is minimum.

Let $(G, +)$ be an abelian group. In 2004, Eliahou and Kervaire found an explicit formula for the smallest possible cardinality of the sumset $A+A$, where $A \subseteq G$ has fixed cardinality $r$. We consider instead the smallest possible cardinality of the difference set $A-A$, which is always greater than or equal to the smallest possible cardinality of $A+A$ and can be strictly greater. We conjecture a formula for this quantity and prove the conjecture in the case that $G...

A subset $A$ of a commutative semigroup $X$ is called a $B_h$ set in $X$ if the only solutions to $a_1+\dots+a_h = b_1 + \cdots +b_h$ (with $a_i,b_i \in A$) are the trivial solutions $\{a_1,\dots,a_h\} = \{b_1,\dots,b_h\}$ (as multisets). With $h=2$ and $X={\mathbb Z}$, these sets are also known as Sidon sets, Golomb Rulers, and Babcock sets. In this work, we generalize constructions of Bose-Chowla and Singer and give the resultant bounds on the diameter of a $k$ element $B_h...

Let $A\subseteq \mathbb{Z}_{\geq 0}$ be a finite set with minimum element $0$, maximum element $m$, and $\ell$ elements in between. Write $(hA)^{(t)}$ for the set of integers that can be written in at least $t$ ways as a sum of $h$ elements of $A$. We prove that $(hA)^{(t)}$ is ``structured'' for \[ h \gtrsim \frac{1}{e} m\ell t^{1/\ell}, \] and prove a similar theorem for $A\subseteq \mathbb{Z}^d$ and $h$ sufficiently large, with some explicit bounds on how large. Moreov...