On the size of coset unions (Q2137072)

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On the size of coset unions
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    On the size of coset unions (English)
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    16 May 2022
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    Let a natural number \(n \in \mathbb N\) be given, \(G\) be any finite group, \(H_1, \dots, H_n\) be subgroups of \(G\) and \(g_1, \dots, g_n \in G\). The authors prove that there exists some constant \(\gamma_n < 1\) such that whenever \(g_1H_1 \cup \dots \cup g_nH_n \ne G\) one has \[ |g_1H_1 \cup \dots \cup g_nH_n| \le \gamma_n |G|\ . \] They show that this result is true with \(\gamma_n = \frac {2n!-1} {2n!}\), and conjecture that \(\gamma_n = \frac {2^n-1} {2^n}\) would be the optimal value for this constant. As partial results, they show that their conjecture holds for \(n \le 5\) if one restricts to subgroups instead of cosets (i.e. \(g_i \in H_i\) for all \(i\)), and also holds for elementary abelian \(p\)-groups.
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    covering of a group
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    coset
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