English

Asymptotically tight bounds on subset sums

Number Theory 2015-05-13 v1 Combinatorics

Abstract

For a subset A of a finite abelian group G we define Sigma(A)={sum_{a\in B}a:B\subset A}. In the case that Sigma(A) has trivial stabiliser, one may deduce that the size of Sigma(A) is at least quadratic in |A|; the bound |Sigma(A)|>= |A|^{2}/64 has recently been obtained by De Vos, Goddyn, Mohar and Samal. We improve this bound to the asymptotically best possible result |Sigma(A)|>= (1/4-o(1))|A|^{2}. We also study a related problem in which A is any subset of Z_{n} with all elements of A coprime to n; it has recently been shown, by Vu, that if such a set A has the property Sigma(A) is not Z_{n} then |A|=O(sqrt{n}). This bound was improved to |A|<= 8sqrt{n} by De Vos, Goddyn, Mohar and Samal, we further improve the bound to the asymptotically best possible result |A|<= (2+o(1))sqrt{n}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0806.0092,
  title  = {Asymptotically tight bounds on subset sums},
  author = {Simon Griffiths},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0806.0092},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

24 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-21T10:46:09.605Z