Restricted set addition: the exceptional case of the Erdős-Heilbronn conjecture (Q1024375)

Let \(p\) be a prime and let \(A,B\) be nonempty subsets of \(\mathbb Z/p\mathbb Z\). The Cauchy-Davenport theorem asserts that \(|A+B|\geq\min\{p,|A|+|B|-1\}\) where \(A+B=\{a+b:\, a\in A,\;b\in B\}\). \textit{N. Alon, M. B. Nathanson} and \textit{I. Ruzsa} [Am. Math. Mon. 102, No. 3, 250--255 (1995; Zbl 0849.11081)] proved that if \(|A|\not=|B|\) then \(|A\dotplus B|\geq\min\{p,|A|+|B|-2\}\), where \(A\dotplus B=\{a+b:\,a\in A,\;B\in B,\;a\not=b\}\). In the paper under review the author proves in a complicated way that if \(A\not=B\) then \(|A\dotplus B|\geq\min\{p,|A|+|B|-2\}\). In 2007 the reviewer's former student Li-Lu Zhao (who is now a PhD student at Hong Kong University) observed that this result is actually trivial. For, if \(A\cap B=\emptyset\) then \(A\dotplus B=A+B\) and hence it follows from the Cauchy-Davenport theorem; if \(A\not=B\) and \(A\cap B\not=\emptyset\) then \(|A\cap B|<|A\cup B|\) and hence \[ \begin{aligned}|A\dotplus B|&\geq|(A\cup B)\dotplus (A\cap B)|\\ &\geq\min\{p,|A\cup B|+|A\cap B|-2\}=\min\{p,|A|+|B|-2\}. \end{aligned} \]