Related papers: On a theorem of S\'ark\"ozy for difference sets an…

Suppose that A is a subset of {1,...,N} such that the difference between any two elements of A is never one less than a prime. We show that |A| = O(N exp(-c(log N)^{1/4})) for some absolute c>0.

Suppose that $A \subset \{1,\dots, N\}$ has no two elements differing by $p-1$, $p$ prime. Then $|A| \ll N^{1 - c}$.

We show that if A is a subset of {1, ..., n} such that it has no pairs of elements whose difference is equal to p-1 with p a prime number, then the size of A is O(n(loglog n)^(-clogloglogloglog n)) for some positive constant c.

Green showed that, conditional on GRH, a subset $A \subseteq [N]$ with $\mid A \mid \gg_{\epsilon} N^{\frac{11}{12}+\epsilon}$ must contain two elements whose difference is $p-1$ for $p$ a prime. We prove an analogous unconditional result…

We make explicit Bombieri's refinement of Gallagher's log-free "large sieve density estimate near $\sigma = 1$" for Dirichlet $L$-functions. We use this estimate and recent work of Green to prove that if $N\geq 2$ is an integer,…

Suppose that $A$ is a finite, nonempty subset of a cyclic group of either infinite or prime order. We show that if the difference set $A-A$ is ``not too large'', then there is a nonzero group element with at least as many as…

We prove that there is an absolute constant $c>0$ with the following property: if $Z/pZ$ denotes the group of prime order $p$, and a subset $A\subset Z/pZ$ satisfies $1<|A|<p/2$, then for any positive integer…

Suppose that $A \subset \{1,\dots, N\}$ has no two elements differing by a square. Then $|A| \ll N e^{-c\sqrt{\log N}}$.

Fix a positive prime power $q$, and let $\mathbb{F}_q[t]$ be the ring of polynomials over the finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$. Suppose $A \subseteq \{f \in \mathbb{F}_q[t]\colon\text{deg}~ f \le N\}$ contains no pair of elements whose…

Let $A$ be a subset of a finite field $\mathbb{F}$. When $\mathbb{F}$ has prime order, we show that there is an absolute constant $c > 0$ such that, if $A$ is both sum-free and equal to the set of its multiplicative inverses, then $|A| <…

Let $p$ be a prime and, for $A\subseteq \mathbb F_p$, define $A^\ast=(A+A)\cup(AA)$. S\'ark\"ozy conjectured that there exist constants $c>0$ and $p_0$ such that, for every prime $p>p_0$, every set $A\subseteq \mathbb F_p$ with…

There exists an absolute constant $C$ with the following property. Let $A \subseteq \mathbb{F}_p$ be a set in the prime order finite field with $p$ elements. Suppose that $|A| > C p^{5/8}$. The set \[ (A \pm A)(A \pm A) = \{(a_1 \pm…

We show that if $A=\{a_1,a_2,..., a_k\}$ is a monotone increasing set of numbers, and the differences of the consecutive elements are all distinct, then $|A+B|\geq c|A|^{1/2}|B|$ for any finite set of numbers $B$. The bound is tight up to…

We show that if $A=\{a_1 < a_2 < \ldots < a_k\}$ is a set of real numbers such that the differences of the consecutive elements are distinct, then for and finite $B \subset \mathbb{R}$, $$|A+B|\gg |A|^{1/2}|B|.$$ The bound is tight up to…

Fix $\alpha \in (0,1/3)$. We show that, from a topological point of view, almost all sets $A\subseteq \mathbb{N}$ have the property that, if $A^\prime=A$ for all but $o(n^{\alpha})$ elements, then $A^\prime$ is not a nontrivial sumset…

We show that if A is a subset of {1,...,N} containing no non-trivial three-term arithmetic progressions then |A|=O(N/ log^{3/4-o(1)} N).

A set A of positive integers is called a perfect difference set if every nonzero integer has an unique representation as the difference of two elements of A. We construct dense perfect difference sets from dense Sidon sets. As a consequence…

Let $A\subset [1,x]$ be a non-empty set of primes with $|A|= \alpha x(\log x)^{-1}$. We prove that there exist absolute constants $c_1,c_2>0$ such that, as $x$ gets sufficiently large, we have $|A+A|\geq c_1(\log x)(\log \log…

We prove that for any finite set A of real numbers its difference set D:=A-A has large product set and quotient set, namely, |DD|, |D/D| \gg |D|^{1+c}, where c>0 is an absolute constant. A similar result takes place in the prime field F_p…

For a base $b\geq 2$ and a set of digits $\mathcal{A}\subset \{0,...,b-1\}$, let $\mathcal{P}$ denote the set of prime numbers with digits restricted to $\mathcal{A}$, when written in base-$b$. We prove that if $A\subset \mathbb{N}$ has…