English

Inverse problems for minimal complements and maximal supplements

Combinatorics 2021-01-01 v2 Number Theory

Abstract

Given a subset WW of an abelian group GG, a subset CC is called an additive complement for WW if W+C=GW+C=G; if, moreover, no proper subset of CC has this property, then we say that CC is a minimal complement for WW. It is natural to ask which subsets CC can arise as minimal complements for some WW. We show that in a finite abelian group GG, every non-empty subset CC of size C22/3G1/3/((3elogG)2/3|C| \leq 2^{2/3}|G|^{1/3}/((3e \log |G|)^{2/3} is a minimal complement for some WW. As a corollary, we deduce that every finite non-empty subset of an infinite abelian group is a minimal complement. We also derive several analogous results for ``dual'' problems about maximal supplements.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2006.00534,
  title  = {Inverse problems for minimal complements and maximal supplements},
  author = {Noga Alon and Noah Kravitz and Matt Larson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2006.00534},
  year   = {2021}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T15:56:35.024Z