Additive bases in groups

DOI10.1007/S11856-017-1452-8MaRDI QIDQ522315zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Victor Lambert, Thái Hoàng Lê, Alain Plagne

Publication date 28 April 2017

Published in Israel Journal of Mathematics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1508.02662

zbMATH Keywords

abelian groups additive bases

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Additive bases, including sumsets (11B13) Abelian groups (20K99)

Abstract: In this paper, we study the problem of removing an element from an additive basis in a general abelian group. We introduce analogues of the classical functions

X

,

S

and

E

(defined in the case of the integers) and obtain bounds on them. Our estimates on the functions

S_{G}

and

E_{G}

are valid for general abelian groups

G

while in the case of

X_{G}

we show that distinct types of behaviours may occur depending on the group

G

.

Review text

Let \(G\) be a commutative semigroup written additively. A subset \(A\) of \(G\) is said to be a basis of order at most \(h\) of \(G\) if all but finitely many elements of \(G\) can be written as a sum of exactly \(h\) elements of \(A.\) If \(h\) is the smallest integer for which this holds, one says that \(A\) is a basis of order \(h\) of \(G,\) and write \(\mathrm{ord}^{*}_{G}(A)= h.\) If no such \(h\) exists, then \(\mathrm{ord}^{*}_{G}(A)= \infty.\) A basis \(A\) of order \(h\) of \(G\) is minimal if for any \(a \in A,\) \(A \setminus \{a\}\) is no longer a basis of order \(h,\) and the basis \(A\) is nice if \(hA = G.\) In the paper under review, the authors prove Theorem 1. Let \(G\) be any infinite abelian group and \(h\) be an integer \(\geq 2.\) Then \(G\) has a nice minimal basis of order \(h.\) Given a basis \(A\) of an abelian group \(G,\) an element \(a \in A\) is called exceptional if \(G \setminus \{a\}\) is not a basis of \(G\) of any order, and regular if \(a\) is not exceptional. Letting \(A^{*}\) denote the set of regular elements in \(A,\) the authors define \[ E_{G}(h) = \max_{hA \sim G}| A \setminus A^{*} | \] and \[ X_{G}(h) = \max_{hA \sim G} \max_{a \in A^{*}}\mathrm{ord}^{*}_{G}(A \setminus A^{*}), \] where \(hA \sim G\) means that the symmetric difference of \(hA\) and \(G\) is finite. The authors establish some results about the functions \(E_{G}\) and \(X_{G}.\) For instance, they prove: Theorem 2. \(\;\) (i) For any infinite abelian group \(G\) and any integer \(h \geq 2,\) we have \(E_{G}(h) \leq h - 1.\) (ii) There is an infinite group \(G\) for which \(E_{G}(h) = h\) for any integer \(h \geq 2.\) (iii) For each integer \(h \geq 2,\) there is an infinite group \(G\) (depending on \(h\)) for which \(E_{G}(h) = 0.\) Theorem 3. Let \(G\) be an infinite abelian group. Suppose there is a subgroup \(H\) of \(G\) such that \(G/H \cong \mathbb{Z}.\) Then for any integer \(h \geq 1,\) we have \(X_{G}(h) \geq \Bigl[\frac{h(h+4)}{3}\Bigr].\)

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