Bases in some additive groups and the Erdős-Turán conjecture (Q1881687)

A 1941 conjecture of Erdős and Turán asserts that the number of representations is unbounded for every basis of order 2 for the set of nonnegative integers. The reviewer [Monatsh. Math. 109, 145--151 (1990; Zbl 0713.11009)] showed the existence of a basis for which the number of representations is bounded in the square mean, and a tool to achieve this was the construction of a basis with a bounded representation function in the finite group \( \mathbb{Z}_p \times \mathbb{Z}_p \). The authors extend this auxiliary result to several other groups. They prove that for an algebraically closed field \(K\) of characteristic \(\neq 2\) the additive group of \( K \times K\) has a basis with representation function bounded by 2, and for every finite field \(K\) of characteristic \(\neq 2\) the additive group of \( K \times K\) has a basis with representation function bounded by 18.