English

A note on Pollard's Theorem

Number Theory 2008-04-17 v1

Abstract

Let A,BA,B be nonempty subsets of a an abelian group GG. Let Ni(A,B)N_i(A,B) denote the set of elements of GG having ii distinct decompositions as a product of an element of AA and an element of BB. We prove that 1itNi(A,B)t(A+Btα+1+w)w, \sum _{1\le i \le t} |N_i (A,B)|\ge t(|A|+|B|- t-\alpha+1+w)-w, where α\alpha is the largest size of a coset contained in ABAB and w=min(α1,1)w=\min (\alpha-1,1), with a strict inequality if α3\alpha\ge 3 and t2t\ge 2, or if α2\alpha\ge 2 and t=2t= 2. This result is a local extension of results by Pollard and Green--Ruzsa and extends also for t>2t>2 a recent result of Grynkiewicz, conjectured by Dicks--Ivanov (for non necessarily abelian groups) in connection to the famous Hanna Neumann problem in Group Theory.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0804.2593,
  title  = {A note on Pollard's Theorem},
  author = {Y. O. Hamidoune and O. Serra},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0804.2593},
  year   = {2008}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-21T10:31:37.186Z