On the Structure of Sets of Large Doubling

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 $\Lambda(4)$ set which does not contain large $B_2[g]$ or $B^\circ_2[g]$ sets.Comment: 23 pages, changed title, revised version reflects work of Meyer that we were previously unaware o

The Contest Between Simplicity and Efficiency in Asynchronous Byzantine Agreement

In the wake of the decisive impossibility result of Fischer, Lynch, and Paterson for deterministic consensus protocols in the aynchronous model with just one failure, Ben-Or and Bracha demonstrated that the problem could be solved with randomness, even for Byzantine failures. Both protocols are natural and intuitive to verify, and Bracha's achieves optimal resilience. However, the expected running time of these protocols is exponential in general. Recently, Kapron, Kempe, King, Saia, and Sanwalani presented the first efficient Byzantine agreement algorithm in the asynchronous, full information model, running in polylogarithmic time. Their algorithm is Monte Carlo and drastically departs from the simple structure of Ben-Or and Bracha's Las Vegas algorithms. In this paper, we begin an investigation of the question: to what extent is this departure necessary? Might there be a much simpler and intuitive Las Vegas protocol that runs in expected polynomial time? We will show that the exponential running time of Ben-Or and Bracha's algorithms is no mere accident of their specific details, but rather an unavoidable consequence of their general symmetry and round structure. We define a natural class of "fully symmetric round protocols" for solving Byzantine agreement in an asynchronous setting and show that any such protocol can be forced to run in expected exponential time by an adversary in the full information model. We assume the adversary controls $t$ Byzantine processors for $t = cn$, where $c$ is an arbitrary positive constant $< 1/3$. We view our result as a step toward identifying the level of complexity required for a polynomial-time algorithm in this setting, and also as a guide in the search for new efficient algorithms.Comment: 21 page

Estimates for the Square Variation of Partial Sums of Fourier Series and their Rearrangements

We investigate the square variation operator $V^2$ (which majorizes the partial sum maximal operator) on general orthonormal systems (ONS) of size $N$. We prove that the $L^2$ norm of the $V^2$ operator is bounded by $O(\ln(N))$ on any ONS. This result is sharp and refines the classical Rademacher-Menshov theorem. We show that this can be improved to $O(\sqrt{\ln(N)})$ for the trigonometric system, which is also sharp. We show that for any choice of coefficients, this truncation of the trigonometric system can be rearranged so that the $L^2$ norm of the associated $V^2$ operator is $O(\sqrt{\ln\ln(N)})$. We also show that for $p>2$, a bounded ONS of size $N$ can be rearranged so that the $L^2$ norm of the $V^p$ operator is at most $O_p(\ln \ln (N))$ uniformly for all choices of coefficients. This refines Bourgain's work on Garsia's conjecture, which is equivalent to the $V^{\infty}$ case. Several other results on operators of this form are also obtained. The proofs rely on combinatorial and probabilistic methods.Comment: 37 pages, several minor edit

A Variational Barban-Davenport-Halberstam Theorem

We prove variational forms of the Barban-Davenport-Halberstam Theorem and the large sieve inequality. We apply our result to prove an estimate for the sum of the squares of prime differences, averaged over arithmetic progressions.Comment: 23 pages, some typos fixed, additional remarks added at end of pape

An exact asymptotic for the square variation of partial sum processes

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