Constructing finite sets from their representation functions (Q2236647)

Let \(A\) be a subset of nonnegative integers. For \(A\subseteq\mathbb{Z}_m\) and \(\overline{n}\in\mathbb{Z}_m\), let \(R_A(\overline{n})\) denote the number of solutions of \(\overline{n}=\overline{a}+\overline{a'}\) with \(\overline{a},\overline{a'}\in A\) and \(\overline{a}\le\overline{a'}\). For \(\overline{n}\in\mathbb{Z}_m\) and \(A\subseteq\mathbb{Z}_m\), let \(\overline{n}+A=\{\overline{n}+\overline{a}:\overline{a}\in A\}\). Let \(p\) be an odd prime. In this paper, the authors consider the partitions of \(\mathbb{Z}_{2 p}\) with \(A\cup B=\mathbb{Z}_{2 p}\) and \(\vert A\cap B\vert =2\) such that \(R_A(\overline{n})=R_B(\overline{n})\) for all \(\overline{n}\in\mathbb{Z}_{2 p}\) and obtain the following results: Theorem 1. Let \(m=2 p\). If \(2\mid{\text{ord}}_p(2)\), then there exist two distinct sets \(A, B\subseteq\mathbb{Z}_m\) with \(A\cup B=\mathbb{Z}_m\), \(\vert A\cap B\vert =2\) and \(B\ne A+\overline{\frac{m}{2}}\) such that \(R_A(\overline{n})=R_B(\overline{n})\) for all \(\overline{n}\in\mathbb{Z}_m\). Theorem 2. Let \(m=2 p\). Let \(A, B\in\mathbb{Z}_m\) with \(A\cup B=\mathbb{Z}_m\) and \(\vert A\cap B\vert =2\). If \(2\nmid{\text{ord}}_p(2)\), then \(R_A(\overline{n})=R_B(\overline{n})\) for all \(\overline{n}\in\mathbb{Z}_m\) if and only if \(B=A+\overline{\frac{m}{2}}\).