English

On the density of sumsets

Number Theory 2022-11-10 v3 Classical Analysis and ODEs Combinatorics

Abstract

Recently introduced by the authors in [Proc. Edinb. Math. Soc. 60 (2020), 139-167], quasi-densities form a large family of real-valued functions partially defined on the power set of the integers that serve as a unifying framework for the study of many known densities (including the asymptotic density, the Banach density, the logarithmic density, the analytic density, and the P\'olya density). We further contribute to this line of research by proving that (i) for each nN+n \in \mathbf N^+ and α[0,1]\alpha \in [0,1], there is ANA \subseteq \mathbf{N} with kAdom(μ)kA \in \text{dom}(\mu) and μ(kA)=αk/n\mu(kA) = \alpha k/n for every quasi-density μ\mu and every k=1,,nk=1,\ldots, n, where kA:=A++AkA:=A+\cdots+A is the kk-fold sumset of AA and dom(μ)\text{dom}(\mu) denotes the domain of definition of μ\mu; (ii) for each α[0,1]\alpha \in [0,1] and every non-empty finite BNB\subseteq \mathbf{N}, there is ANA \subseteq \mathbf{N} with A+Bdom(μ)A+B \in \mathrm{dom}(\mu) and μ(A+B)=α\mu(A+B)=\alpha for every quasi-density μ\mu; (iii) for each α[0,1]\alpha \in [0,1], there exists ANA\subseteq \mathbf{N} with 2A=N2A = \mathbf{N} such that Adom(μ)A \in \text{dom}(\mu) and μ(A)=α\mu(A) = \alpha for every quasi-density μ\mu. Proofs rely on the properties of a little known density first considered by R.C. Buck and the "structure" of the set of all quasi-densities; in particular, they are rather different than previously known proofs of special cases of the same results.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2001.10413,
  title  = {On the density of sumsets},
  author = {Paolo Leonetti and Salvatore Tringali},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.10413},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

13 pages, to appear in Monatshefte f\"ur Mathematik. We fixed a gap in the old "proof" of Theorem 3.1, which made it necessary to improve on Proposition 2.4 (that is, Proposition 2.3 in the previous version of the paper)

R2 v1 2026-06-23T13:23:04.632Z