English

Translation invariance in groups of prime order

Number Theory 2009-12-04 v1 Combinatorics

Abstract

We prove that there is an absolute constant c>0c>0 with the following property: if Z/pZZ/pZ denotes the group of prime order pp, and a subset AZ/pZA\subset Z/pZ satisfies 1<A<p/21<|A|<p/2, then for any positive integer m<min{cA/lnA,p/8}m<\min\{c|A|/\ln|A|,\sqrt{p/8}\} there are at most 2m2m non-zero elements bZ/pZb\in Z/pZ with (A+b)Am|(A+b)\setminus A|\le m. This (partially) extends onto prime-order groups the result, established earlier by S. Konyagin and the present author for the group of integers. We notice that if AZ/pZA\subset Z/pZ is an arithmetic progression and m<A<p/2m<|A|<p/2, then there are exactly 2m2m non-zero elements bZ/pZb\in Z/pZ with (A+b)Am|(A+b)\setminus A|\le m. Furthermore, the bound cA/lnAc|A|/\ln|A| is best possible up to the value of the constant cc. On the other hand, it is likely that the assumption m<p/8m<\sqrt{p/8} can be dropped or substantially relaxed.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0912.0721,
  title  = {Translation invariance in groups of prime order},
  author = {Vsevolod F. Lev},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0912.0721},
  year   = {2009}
}