Related papers: Freiman's $(3k-4)$-like results for subset and sub…
We develop a new method leading the structure of finite subsets S and T of an abelian group with $|S+T|\le |S|+|T|$. We show also how to recover the known results in this area in a relatively short space.
Recently S. Goswami proved that whenever the set $\mathbb N$ of natural numbers is finitely colored, the set $\{a, b, ab, b(a+1)\}$ is monochromatic which also established a variant of the long-standing Hindman's conjecture, which asks for…
The sumset and inverse sumset theories of Freiman, Pl\"{u}nnecke and Ruzsa, give bounds connecting the cardinality of the sumset $A+B=\{a+b\;;\;a\in A,\,b\in B\}$ of two discrete sets $A,B$, to the cardinalities (or the finer structure) of…
Given a set $A\subseteq\mathbb{N}$, we consider the relationship between stability of the structure $(\mathbb{Z},+,0,A)$ and sparsity of the set $A$. We first show that a strong enough sparsity assumption on $A$ yields stability of…
In this paper we consider the following conjecture, proposed by Brian Alspach, concerning partial sums in finite cyclic groups: given a subset $A$ of $\mathbb{Z}_n\setminus \{0\}$ of size $k$ such that $\sum_{z\in A} z\not= 0$, it is…
A family of sets $\mathcal{A}$ is union-closed if it is finite and nonempty with member sets that are all finite and distinct (at least one of which is nonempty) and it satisfies the property $X, Y \in \mathcal{A} \implies X \cup Y \in…
Given a family $S$ of $k$--subsets of $[n]$, its lower shadow $\Delta(S)$ is the family of $(k-1)$--subsets which are contained in at least one set in $S$. The celebrated Kruskal--Katona theorem gives the minimum cardinality of $\Delta(S)$…
This is a sequel to the paper arXiv:1312.6438 by the same authors. In this sequel, we quantitatively improve several of the main results of arXiv:1312.6438, and build on the methods therein. The main new results is that, for any finite set…
The Frankl conjecture, also known as the union-closed sets conjecture, states that in any finite non-empty union-closed family, there exists an element in at least half of the sets. From an optimization point of view, one could instead…
The Kruskal-Friedman theorem asserts: in any infinite sequence of finite trees with ordinal labels, some tree can be embedded into a later one, by an embedding that respects a certain gap condition. This strengthening of the original…
Let $G = (G,+)$ be a compact connected abelian group, and let $\mu_G$ denote its probability Haar measure. A theorem of Kneser (generalising previous results of Macbeath and Raikov) establishes the bound $$ \mu_G(A + B) \geq \min(…
For a finite abelian group $G$ with subsets $A$ and $B$, the sumset $AB$ is $\{ab \mid a\in A, b \in B\}$. A fundamental problem in additive combinatorics is to find a lower bound for the cardinality of $AB$ in terms of the cardinalities of…
Let $(G,+)$ be a finite abelian group. Then, $\so(G)$ and $\eta(G)$ denote the smallest integer $\ell$ such that each sequence over $G$ of length at least $\ell$ has a subsequence whose terms sum to $0$ and whose length is equal to and at…
We call a family $\mathcal{F}$ of subsets of $[n]$ $s$-saturated if it contains no $s$ pairwise disjoint sets, and moreover no set can be added to $\mathcal{F}$ while preserving this property (here $[n] = \{1,\ldots,n\}$). More than 40…
For a non-negative integer $m$, let $S(m)$ denote the sum given by $$S(m):=\sum_{n=0}^{m}\frac{(-1)^n(8n+1)}{n!^3}\left(\frac{1}{4}\right)_n^3.$$ Using the powerful WZ-method, for a prime $p\equiv 3$ $($mod $4)$ and an odd integer $r>1$, we…
Z.-W. Sun introduced three kinds of numbers: \begin{align*}S_n=\sum_{k=0}^{n}{n\choose k}^2{2k\choose k}(2k+1),\qquad s_n=\sum_{k=0}^{n}{n\choose k}^2{2k\choose k}\frac{1}{2k-1}, \end{align*} and $S_n^{+}=\sum_{k=0}^{n}{n\choose…
A family ${\mathcal A}$ of $k$-subsets of $\{1,2,\dots, N\}$ is a Sidon system if the sumsets $A+B$, $A,B\in \mathcal{A}$ are pairwise distinct. We show that the largest cardinality $F_k(N)$ of a Sidon system of $k$-subsets of $[N]$…
Shnirel'man's inequality and Shnirel'man's basis theorem are fundamental results about sums of sets of positive integers in additive number theory. It is proved that these results are inherently order-theoretic and extend to partially…
Cameron and Erd\H{o}s raised the question of how many maximal sum-free sets there are in $\{1, \dots , n\}$, giving a lower bound of $2^{\lfloor n/4 \rfloor }$. In this paper we prove that there are in fact at most $2^{(1/4+o(1))n}$ maximal…
Let $\boldsymbol{\alpha}\in \mathbb{R}^N$ and $Q\geq 1$. We consider the sum $\sum_{\boldsymbol{q}\in [-Q,Q]^N\cap\mathbb{Z}^N\backslash\{\boldsymbol{0}\}}\|\boldsymbol{\alpha}\cdot\boldsymbol{q}\|^{-1}$. Sharp upper bounds are known when…