Restricted sumsets in multiplicative subgroups

We establish the restricted sumset analog of the celebrated conjecture of S\'{a}rk\"{o}zy on additive decompositions of the set of nonzero squares over a finite field. More precisely, we show that if $q>13$ is an odd prime power, then the set of nonzero squares in $\mathbb{F}_q$ cannot be written as a restricted sumset $A \hat{+} A$, extending a result of Shkredov. More generally, we study restricted sumsets in multiplicative subgroups over finite fields as well as restricted sumsets in perfect powers (over integers) motivated by a question of Erd\H{o}s and Moser. We also prove an analog of van Lint-MacWilliams' conjecture for restricted sumsets, equivalently, an analog of Erd\H{o}s-Ko-Rado theorem in a family of Cayley sum graphs.Comment: 23 page

On various restricted sumsets

For finite subsets A_1,...,A_n of a field, their sumset is given by {a_1+...+a_n: a_1 in A_1,...,a_n in A_n}. In this paper we study various restricted sumsets of A_1,...,A_n with restrictions of the following forms: a_i-a_j not in S_{ij}, or alpha_ia_i not=alpha_ja_j, or a_i+b_i not=a_j+b_j (mod m_{ij}). Furthermore, we gain an insight into relations among recent results on this area obtained in quite different ways.Comment: 11 pages; final version for J. Number Theor

Three-term arithmetic progressions and sumsets

Suppose that G is an abelian group and A is a finite subset of G containing no three-term arithmetic progressions. We show that |A+A| >> |A|(log |A|)^{1/3-\epsilon} for all \epsilon>0.Comment: 20 pp. Corrected typos. Updated references. Corrected proof of Theorem 5.1. Minor revisions

Almost all primes have a multiple of small Hamming weight

Recent results of Bourgain and Shparlinski imply that for almost all primes $p$ there is a multiple $mp$ that can be written in binary as $mp= 1+2^{m_1}+ \cdots +2^{m_k}, \quad 1\leq m_1 < \cdots < m_k,$ with $k=66$ or $k=16$, respectively. We show that $k=6$ (corresponding to Hamming weight $7$) suffices. We also prove there are infinitely many primes $p$ with a multiplicative subgroup $A=\subset \mathbb{F}_p^*$, for some $g \in \{2,3,5\}$, of size $|A|\gg p/(\log p)^3$, where the sum-product set $A\cdot A+ A\cdot A$ does not cover $\mathbb{F}_p$ completely

Additive structures in sumsets

Suppose that A is a subset of the integers {1,...,N} of density a. We provide a new proof of a result of Green which shows that A+A contains an arithmetic progression of length exp(ca(log N)^{1/2}) for some absolute c>0. Furthermore we improve the length of progression guaranteed in higher sumsets; for example we show that A+A+A contains a progression of length roughly N^{ca} improving on the previous best of N^{ca^{2+\epsilon}}.Comment: 28 pp. Corrected typos. Updated references