Counting MSTD sets in finite abelian groups (Q708268): Difference between revisions

An MSTD (More Sums Than Differences) set is finite set \(A\) of integers, such that \(|A+A|>|A-A|\) (in general, because the sum is a commutative operation and difference is not, this type of sets forms a singularity). The first example was found by Conway in the 1960s: \(\{0,2,3,4,7,11,12,14\}\). The paper continues \textit{M. B. Nathanson}'s research [Integers 7, No. 1, Paper A05, 24 p. (2007; Zbl 1107.11017)] extending the notion of MSTD to an abelian group (until now all results are obtained for integers). The main result is a theorem for counting the number MSTD sets in such groups. Namely, if \(\{G_n\}\) is a sequence of abelian groups, in some hypothesis, the number of MSTD sets in \(G_n\) equals approximatively \(k_n\cdot 3^{|G_n|/2}\) or \(\frac{1}{2}|G_n|\cdot \phi^{|G_n|}\), where \(k_n\) is the number of elements of order \(2\) from \(G_n\), and \(\phi=(1+\sqrt{5})/2\). The proof uses as working instrument some results concerning Fibonacci indices of forbiddance graphs. Finally, some corollaries are deduced, one of them being an improvement of Nathanson's result. The paper is interesting, with many possibilities for sequels and extensions. As a remark, in the same issue of Journal of Number Theory there is another paper of the author with the same subject: ``Constructing MSTD sets using bidirectional ballot sequences'' [J. Number Theory 130, No. 5, 1212--1220 (2010; Zbl 1218.11097)].