Some nonstandard methods in combinatorial number theory (Q1121886)

The author investigates the \(\omega_ 1\)-saturated model \({}^*{\mathbb{N}}\). For an internal subset A of \({}^*{\mathbb{N}}\) and an interval I he denotes by \(g_ A(I)\) the ratio of the length of the maximal gap of A to the length of I. Let \(y,z\in^*{\mathbb{N}}\) with \((z- y)\in^*{\mathbb{N}}\setminus {\mathbb{N}}\). Consider the image of A under a linear mapping of [y,z] onto [0,1] and denote by \(st_{[y,z]}(A)\) the set of standard parts of elements of the image. A is said to have the IM property on [y,z] iff for every real standard \(\beta >0\) there is an \(\alpha >0\) such that [u,v]\(\subseteq [y,z]\), \((v- u)\in^*{\mathbb{N}}\setminus {\mathbb{N}}\) and \(g_ A([u,v])\leq \alpha\) implies \(\mu (st_{[u,v]}(A))\geq 1-\beta\) (\(\mu\) is the Lebesgue measure). For an infinite sequence A of natural numbers the SIM (for standard internal measure) property is defined. Roughly speaking it indicates that large gaps of A are rare. A combinatorial theorem involving the notion of an IM set is proved by using the Lebesgue density theorem. From this result a standard theorem is obtained: Let \(A=<a_ n>\) be a sequence of natural numbers such that \(\lim (a_{n+1}-a_ n)=\infty\). Then A does not have the SIM property. Denote by D(A) the set of such n that \(n=a_ i-a_ j\) for infinitely many i, j. If \(A_ i\) has the SIM property for \(i=1,...,n\) then \(D(A_ 1)\cap...\cap D(A_ n)\) has bounded gaps.