A variant of Tao's method with application to restricted sumsets

In this paper, we develop Terence Tao's harmonic analysis method and apply it to restricted sumsets. The well known Cauchy-Davenport theorem asserts that if $A$ and $B$ are nonempty subsets of $Z/pZ$ with $p$ a prime, then $|A+B|\ge min{p,|A|+|B|-1}$, where $A+B={a+b: a\in A, b\in B}$. In 2005, Terence Tao gave a harmonic analysis proof of the Cauchy-Davenport theorem, by applying a new form of the uncertainty principle on Fourier transform. We modify Tao's method so that it can be used to prove the following extension of the Erdos-Heilbronn conjecture: If $A,B,S$ are nonempty subsets of $Z/pZ$ with $p$ a prime, then $|{a+b: a\in A, b\in B, a-b not\in S}|\ge min {p,|A|+|B|-2|S|-1}$

Classification theorems for sumsets modulo a prime

Let $\Z/pZ$ be the finite field of prime order $p$ and $A$ be a subsequence of $\Z/pZ$. We prove several classification results about the following questions: (1) When can one represent zero as a sum of some elements of $A$ ? (2) When can one represent every element of $\Z/pZ$ as a sum of some elements of $A$ ? (3) When can one represent every element of $\Z/pZ$ as a sum of $l$ elements of $A$ ?Comment: 35 pages, to appear in JCT

Additive Combinatorics: A Menu of Research Problems

This text contains over three hundred specific open questions on various topics in additive combinatorics, each placed in context by reviewing all relevant results. While the primary purpose is to provide an ample supply of problems for student research, it is hopefully also useful for a wider audience. It is the author's intention to keep the material current, thus all feedback and updates are greatly appreciated.Comment: This August 2017 version incorporates feedback and updates from several colleague

Sumsets with a minimum number of distinct terms

For a non-empty $k$-element set $A$ of an additive abelian group $G$ and a positive integer $r \leq k$, we consider the set of elements of $G$ that can be written as a sum of $h$ elements of $A$ with at least $r$ distinct elements. We denote this set as $h^{(\geq r)}A$ for integers $h \geq r$. The set $h^{(\geq r)}A$ generalizes the classical sumsets $hA$ and $h\hat{}A$ for $r=1$ and $r=h$, respectively. Thus, we call the set $h^{(\geq r)}A$ the generalized sumset of $A$. By writing the sumset $h^{(\geq r)}A$ in terms of the sumsets $hA$ and $h\hat{}A$, we obtain the sharp lower bound on the size of $h^{(\geq r)}A$ over the groups $\mathbb{Z}$ and $\mathbb{Z}_p$, where $p$ is a prime number. We also characterize the set $A$ for which the lower bound on the size of $h^{(\geq r)}A$ is tight in these groups. Further, using some elementary arguments, we prove an upper bound for the minimum size of $h^{(\geq r)}A$ over the group $\mathbb{Z}_m$ for any integer $m \geq 2$.Comment: 16 page

The number of subsets of integers with no kk-term arithmetic progression

Addressing a question of Cameron and Erd\Ho s, we show that, for infinitely many values of $n$, the number of subsets of $\{1,2,\ldots, n\}$ that do not contain a $k$-term arithmetic progression is at most $2^{O(r_k(n))}$, where $r_k(n)$ is the maximum cardinality of a subset of $\{1,2,\ldots, n\}$ without a $k$-term arithmetic progression. This bound is optimal up to a constant factor in the exponent. For all values of $n$, we prove a weaker bound, which is nevertheless sufficient to transfer the current best upper bound on $r_k(n)$ to the sparse random setting. To achieve these bounds, we establish a new supersaturation result, which roughly states that sets of size $\Theta(r_k(n))$ contain superlinearly many $k$-term arithmetic progressions. For integers $r$ and $k$, Erd\Ho s asked whether there is a set of integers $S$ with no $(k+1)$-term arithmetic progression, but such that any $r$-coloring of $S$ yields a monochromatic $k$-term arithmetic progression. Ne\v{s}et\v{r}il and R\"odl, and independently Spencer, answered this question affirmatively. We show the following density version: for every $k\ge 3$ and $\delta>0$, there exists a reasonably dense subset of primes $S$ with no $(k+1)$-term arithmetic progression, yet every $U\subseteq S$ of size $|U|\ge\delta|S|$ contains a $k$-term arithmetic progression. Our proof uses the hypergraph container method, which has proven to be a very powerful tool in extremal combinatorics. The idea behind the container method is to have a small certificate set to describe a large independent set. We give two further applications in the appendix using this idea.Comment: To appear in International Mathematics Research Notices. This is a longer version than the journal version, containing two additional minor applications of the container metho

Arithmetic-Progression-Weighted Subsequence Sums

Let $G$ be an abelian group, let $S$ be a sequence of terms $s_1,s_2,...,s_{n}\in G$ not all contained in a coset of a proper subgroup of $G$, and let $W$ be a sequence of $n$ consecutive integers. Let $$W\odot S=\{w_1s_1+...+w_ns_n:\;w_i {a term of} W,\, w_i\neq w_j{for} i\neq j\},$$ which is a particular kind of weighted restricted sumset. We show that $|W\odot S|\geq \min\{|G|-1,\,n\}$, that $W\odot S=G$ if $n\geq |G|+1$, and also characterize all sequences $S$ of length $|G|$ with $W\odot S\neq G$. This result then allows us to characterize when a linear equation $$a_1x_1+...+a_rx_r\equiv \alpha\mod n,$$ where $\alpha,a_1,..., a_r\in \Z$ are given, has a solution $(x_1,...,x_r)\in \Z^r$ modulo $n$ with all $x_i$ distinct modulo $n$. As a second simple corollary, we also show that there are maximal length minimal zero-sum sequences over a rank 2 finite abelian group $G\cong C_{n_1}\oplus C_{n_2}$ (where $n_1\mid n_2$ and $n_2\geq 3$) having $k$ distinct terms, for any $k\in [3,\min\{n_1+1,\,\exp(G)\}]$. Indeed, apart from a few simple restrictions, any pattern of multiplicities is realizable for such a maximal length minimal zero-sum sequence