English

Cauchy-Davenport type theorems for semigroups

Group Theory 2015-12-09 v2 Combinatorics Number Theory

Abstract

Let A=(A,+)\mathbb{A} = (A, +) be a (possibly non-commutative) semigroup. For ZAZ \subseteq A we define Z×:=ZA×Z^\times := Z \cap \mathbb A^\times, where A×\mathbb A^\times is the set of the units of A\mathbb{A}, and γ(Z):=supz0Z×infz0zZord(zz0).\gamma(Z) := \sup_{z_0 \in Z^\times} \inf_{z_0 \ne z \in Z} {\rm ord}(z - z_0). The paper investigates some properties of γ()\gamma(\cdot) and shows the following extension of the Cauchy-Davenport theorem: If A\mathbb A is cancellative and X,YAX, Y \subseteq A, then X+Ymin(γ(X+Y),X+Y1).|X+Y| \ge \min(\gamma(X+Y),|X| + |Y| - 1). This implies a generalization of Kemperman's inequality for torsion-free groups and strengthens another extension of the Cauchy-Davenport theorem, where A\mathbb{A} is a group and γ(X+Y)\gamma(X+Y) in the above is replaced by the infimum of S|S| as SS ranges over the non-trivial subgroups of A\mathbb{A} (Hamidoune-K\'arolyi theorem).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1307.8396,
  title  = {Cauchy-Davenport type theorems for semigroups},
  author = {Salvatore Tringali},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1307.8396},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

To appear in Mathematika (12 pages, no figures; the paper is a sequel of arXiv:1210.4203v4; shortened comments and proofs in Sections 3 and 4; refined the statement of Conjecture 6 and added a note in proof at the end of Section 6 to mention that the conjecture is true at least in another non-trivial case)

R2 v1 2026-06-22T01:01:38.841Z