English

Largest Sidon subsets in weak Sidon sets

Combinatorics 2026-03-09 v2

Abstract

A finite set SR S \subset \mathbb{R} is called a Sidon set if all sums x+y x+y with x,yS x,y \in S and xy x \le y are distinct, and a weak Sidon set if all sums x+y x+y with x,yS x,y \in S and x<y x < y are distinct. For a finite set AR A \subset \mathbb{R} , let h(A) h(A) denote the maximum size of a Sidon subset of A A , and define g(n):=min{h(A):AR, A=n, A is a weak Sidon set}. g(n) := \min\{\, h(A) : A \subset \mathbb{R},\ |A| = n,\ A \text{ is a weak Sidon set} \,\}. S\'ark\"ozy and S\'os asked whether the limit limng(n)/n \lim_{n\to\infty} g(n)/n exists and, if so, to determine its value. We resolve this problem completely by determining g(n)g(n) exactly: g(n)=n+12for all n1. g(n)=\left\lceil \frac{n+1}{2}\right\rceil \qquad\text{for all } n\ge 1. In particular, limng(n)/n=12\lim_{n\to\infty} g(n)/n=\frac12. We also investigate a related problem of Erd\H{o}s concerning a local difference condition. A finite set AR A \subset \mathbb{R} is called a (4,5)(4,5)-set if every 44-element subset of AA determines at least five distinct values among its six pairwise absolute differences. Erd\H{o}s asked for the optimal constant c>0 c_* > 0 such that every (4,5)(4,5)-set of size n n contains a Sidon subset of size at least cn c_* n . Gy\'arf\'as and Lehel reduced this to an extremal problem of 33-uniform hypergraphs and proved 12+114176c35\frac{1}{2} + \frac{1}{141 \cdot 76} \le c_* \le \frac{3}{5}. We improve both bounds by establishing 917c47, \frac{9}{17} \le c_* \le \frac{4}{7}, where the lower bound uses a reformulation of the extremal problem, and the upper bound follows from an explicit construction together with a convenient characterization of cc_*.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.23282,
  title  = {Largest Sidon subsets in weak Sidon sets},
  author = {Jie Ma and Quanyu Tang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.23282},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

15 pages. This is the submitted version

R2 v1 2026-07-01T10:54:18.371Z