Cardinalities of $g$-difference sets

A difference basis with respect to $n$ is a subset $A \subseteq \mathbb{Z}$ such that $A - A \supseteq \{1, \ldots, n\}$. R\'{e}dei and R\'{e}nyi showed that the minimum size of a difference basis with respect to $n$ is $(c+o(1))\sqrt{n}$ for some positive constant $c$. The best previously known lower bound on $c$ is $c \geqslant 1.5602\ldots$, which was obtained by Leech using a version of an earlier argument due to R\'{e}dei and R\'{e}nyi. In this note we use Fourier-analyt...

In our paper we study multiplicative properties of difference sets $A-A$ for large sets $A \subseteq \mathbb{Z}/q\mathbb{Z}$ in the case of composite $q$. We obtain a quantitative version of a result of A. Fish about the structure of the product sets $(A-A)(A-A)$. Also, we show that the multiplicative covering number of any difference set is always small.

There exists an absolute constant $\delta > 0$ such that for all $q$ and all subsets $A \subseteq \mathbb{F}_q$ of the finite field with $q$ elements, if $|A| > q^{2/3 - \delta}$, then \[ |(A-A)(A-A)| = |\{ (a -b) (c-d) : a,b,c,d \in A\}| > \frac{q}{2}. \] Any $\delta < 1/13,542$ suffices for sufficiently large $q$. This improves the condition $|A| > q^{2/3}$, due to Bennett, Hart, Iosevich, Pakianathan, and Rudnev, that is typical for such questions. Our proof is based on ...

We prove that if $G$ is an Abelian group and $A_1,\ldots,A_k \subseteq G$ satisfy $m A_i=G$ (the $m$-fold sumset), then $A_1+\ldots+A_k=G$ provided that $k \ge c_m \log n$. This generalizes a result of Alon, Linial, and Meshulam [Additive bases of vector spaces over prime fields. J. Combin. Theory Ser. A, 57(2):203--210, 1991] regarding the so called additive bases.

A subset $B$ of an Abelian group $G$ is called a difference basis of $G$ if each element $g\in G$ can be written as the difference $g=a-b$ of some elements $a,b\in B$. The smallest cardinality $|B|$ of a difference basis $B\subset G$ is called the difference size of $G$ and is denoted by $\Delta[G]$. We prove that for every $n\in\mathbb N$ the cyclic group $C_n$ of order $n$ has difference size $\frac{1+\sqrt{4|n|-3}}2\le \Delta[C_n]\le\frac32\sqrt{n}$. If $n\ge 9$ (and $n\ge...

A set $\mathcal{A}$ is said to be an additive $h$-basis if each element in $\{0,1,\ldots,hn\}$ can be written as an $h$-sum of elements of $\mathcal{A}$ in {\it at least} one way. We seek multiple representations as $h$-sums, and, in this paper we make a start by restricting ourselves to $h=2$. We say that $\mathcal{A}$ is said to be a truncated $(\alpha,2,g)$ additive basis if each $j\in[\alpha n, (2-\alpha)n]$ can be represented as a $2$-sum of elements of $\mathcal{A}$ in ...

We consider two questions of Ruzsa on how the minimum size of an additive basis $B$ of a given set $A$ depends on the domain of $B$. To state these questions, for an abelian group $G$ and $A \subseteq D \subseteq G$ we write $\ell_D(A) \colon =\min \{ |B|: B \subseteq D, \ A \subseteq B+B \}$. Ruzsa asked how much larger can $\ell_{\mathbb{Z}}(A)$ be than $\ell_{\mathbb{Q}}(A)$ for $A\subset\mathbb{Z}$, and how much larger can $\ell_{\mathbb{N}}(A)$ be than $\ell_{\mathbb{Z}}...

For every $\epsilon > 0$ and $k \in \mathbb{N}$, Haight constructed a set $A \subset \mathbb{Z}_N$ ($\mathbb{Z}_N$ stands for the integers modulo $N$) for a suitable $N$, such that $A-A = \mathbb{Z}_N$ and $|kA| < \epsilon N$. Recently, Nathanson posed the problem of constructing sets $A \subset \mathbb{Z}_N$ for given polynomials $p$ and $q$, such that $p(A) = \mathbb{Z}_N$ and $|q(A)| < \epsilon N$, where $p(A)$ is the set $\{p(a_1, a_2, \dots, a_n)\phantom{.}\colon\phantom...

A subset $B$ of a group $G$ is called a difference basis of $G$ if each element $g\in G$ can be written as the difference $g=ab^{-1}$ of some elements $a,b\in B$. The smallest cardinality $|B|$ of a difference basis $B\subset G$ is called the difference size of $G$ and is denoted by $\Delta[G]$. The fraction $\eth[G]:=\frac{\Delta[G]}{\sqrt{|G|}}$ is called the difference characteristic of $G$. Using properies of the Galois rings, we prove recursive upper bounds for the diffe...

We reduce the principal problem of Additive Number Theory of whether an infinite sequence of integers constitutes a finite basis for the integers to a Diophantine problem involving the difference set of the sequence, by proving a formula connecting the respective number of solutions.