A superadditivity and submultiplicativity property for cardinalities of sumsets (Q653776): Difference between revisions

Given \(n\) nonempty finite sets of integers \(A_1,\dots,A_n\) the authors compare the cardinalities of the sets \(S\) and \(S_i\), where \[ S:=A_1+A_2+\dots + A_n\quad \text{and}\quad S_i:=A_1+ A_2+ \dots + A_{i-1}+ A_{i+1}+\dots + A_n. \] They prove the following nice result: \[ \frac{1}{k-1}\left(\sum^k_ 1| S_i| -1\right)\leq | S| \leq \left(\prod_1^k | S_i| \right)^{\frac{1}{k-1}}. \] Generalizations to commutative semigroups or torsion-free groups are discussed, as well as the case where addition is restricted to an addition graph between the sets.