English

Squares and difference sets in finite fields

Combinatorics 2013-05-06 v1 Number Theory

Abstract

For infinitely many primes p=4k+1p=4k+1 we give a slightly improved upper bound for the maximal cardinality of a set B\ZZpB\subset \ZZ_p such that the difference set BBB-B contains only quadratic residues. Namely, instead of the "trivial" bound Bp|B|\leq \sqrt{p} we prove Bp1|B|\leq \sqrt{p}-1, under suitable conditions on pp. The new bound is valid for approximately three quarters of the primes p=4k+1p=4k+1.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1305.0577,
  title  = {Squares and difference sets in finite fields},
  author = {Christine Bachoc and Imre Z. Ruzsa and Mate Matolcsi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1305.0577},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

6 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-22T00:10:33.685Z