Related papers: Large sumsets from medium-sized subsets
We show that a non-empty subset of an abelian group with a small edge boundary must be large; in particular, if $A$ and $S$ are finite, non-empty subsets of an abelian group such that $S$ is independent, and the edge boundary of $A$ with…
Let $\mathbb{A} = (A, +)$ be a (possibly non-commutative) semigroup. For $Z \subseteq A$ we define $Z^\times := Z \cap \mathbb A^\times$, where $\mathbb A^\times$ is the set of the units of $\mathbb{A}$, and $$\gamma(Z) := \sup_{z_0 \in…
In this note, we derive an asymptotically sharp upper bound on the number of lattice points in terms of the volume of centrally symmetric convex bodies. Our main tool is a generalization of a result of Davenport that bounds the number of…
Let us fix a prime $p$. The Erd\H{o}s-Ginzburg-Ziv problem asks for the minimum integer $s$ such that any collection of $s$ points in the lattice $\mathbb{Z}^n$ contains $p$ points whose centroid is also a lattice point in $\mathbb{Z}^n$.…
The Davenport constant is one measure for how "large" a finite abelian group is. In particular, the Davenport constant of an abelian group is the smallest $k$ such that any sequence of length $k$ is reducible. This definition extends…
Let $G$ be a finite abeilian group. A sequence $S$ with terms from $G$ is zero-sum if the sum of terms in $S$ equals zero. It is a minimal zero-sum sequence if no proper, nontrivial subsequence is zero-sum. The maximal length of a minimal…
For a set $A$ of $k$ elements from an additive abelian group $G$ and a positive integer $r \leq k$, we consider the set of elements of $G$ that can be written as a sum of $h$ elements of $A$ with at least $r$ distinct elements. We denote…
Let $A\subset [1, 2]$ be a $(\delta, \sigma)$-set with measure $|A|=\delta^{1-\sigma}$ in the sense of Katz and Tao. For $\sigma\in (1/2, 1)$ we show that $$ |A+A|+|AA|\gtrapprox \delta^{-c}|A|, $$ for…
Let $A$ be a subset of primes up to $x$. If we assume $A$ is well-distributed (in the Siegel-Walfisz sense) in any arithmetic progressions to moduli $q\leqslant(\log x)^c$ for any $c>0$, then the sumset $A+A$ has density 1/2 in the natural…
The Shapley-Folkman theorem shows that Minkowski averages of uniformly bounded sets tend to be convex when the number of terms in the sum becomes much larger than the ambient dimension. In optimization, Aubin and Ekeland [1976] show that…
Let $\left\{a_1, \dots, a_n\right\} \subset \mathbb{N}$ be a set of positive integers, $a_n$ denoting the largest element, so that for any two of the $2^n$ subsets the sum of all elements is distinct. Erd\H{o}s asked whether this implies…
Let $G$ be a multiplicative group, let $A,B \subseteq G$ be finite and nonempty, and define the product set $AB = {ab \mid $a \in A$ and $b \in B$}$. Two fundamental problems in combinatorial number theory are to find lower bounds on…
Let A and B be subsets of an elementary abelian 2-group G, none of which are contained in a coset of a proper subgroup. Extending onto potentially distinct summands a result of Hennecart and Plagne, we show that if |A+B|<|A|+|B|, then…
We obtain a first non-trivial estimate for the sum of dilates problem in the case of groups of prime order, by showing that if $t$ is an integer different from $0, 1$ or -1 and if $\A \subset \Zp$ is not too large (with respect to $p$),…
For $(G,+)$ a finite abelian group the plus-minus weighted Davenport constant, denoted $\mathsf{D}_{\pm}(G)$, is the smallest $\ell$ such that each sequence $g_1 ... g_{\ell}$ over $G$ has a weighted zero-subsum with weights +1 and -1,…
Let $A \subset \mathbb{Z}_{>0}$ of size $n$. It is conjectured that for any $C >0$ and $n$ large enough that $A$ contains a sum-free subset of size at least $n/3 +C$. We study this problem and find an alternate proof of Bourgain's result…
A symmetric subset of the reals is one that remains invariant under some reflection z --> c-z. We consider, for any 0 < x <= 1, the largest real number D(x) such that every subset of $[0,1]$ with measure greater than x contains a symmetric…
The aim of this paper is to prove a general version of Pl\"unnecke's inequality. Namely, assume that for finite sets $A$, $B_1, ... B_k$ we have information on the size of the sumsets $A+B_{i_1}+... +B_{i_l}$ for all choices of indices…
A family of sets is called union-closed if whenever $A$ and $B$ are sets of the family, so is $A\cup B$. The long-standing union-closed conjecture states that if a family of subsets of $[n]$ is union-closed, some element appears in at least…
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| <…