New proofs of Plünnecke-type estimates for product sets in groups (Q2250835)

Plünnecke's inequality is a standard tool for estimating the cardinality of sumsets of finite sets in a commutative group [\textit{H. Plünnecke}, J. Reine Angew. Math. 243, 171--183 (1970; Zbl 0199.36701)]. \textit{I. Z. Ruzsa} [Sci., Ser. A 3, 97--109 (1989; Zbl 0743.05052); Sci., Ser. A, Math. Sci. (N. S.) 4, 93--94 (1991; Zbl 1103.05316); in: Number Theory (New York, 1991--1995), New York: Springer, 281--293 (1996; Zbl 0869.11011)] simplified Plünnecke's proof and extended the result to sum-and-difference sets. \textit{T. Tao} [Combinatorica 28, No. 5, 547--594 (2008; Zbl 1254.11017)] obtained estimates in the non-commutative case. In the paper under review the author presents a new method to bound the cardinality of product sets in groups and gives three applications. The main tool is the following Proposition 2.1. Let \(X\) and \(B\) be finite non-empty sets in a group. Suppose that \(\frac {| XB| }{| X| } \leq \frac {| ZB| }{| Z| }\) for all non-empty subsets \(Z\subseteq X\). Then, for all finite sets \(C\), \; \(| CXB| \leq \frac {| CX| | XB| }{| X| }\). Applying Proposition 2.1 repeatedly the author obtains a new and unexpectedly short proof of the Plünnecke-Ruzsa sumset inequalities for commutative groups. In Section 4, the author proves Tao's theorem with explicit constants. In Section 5, he establishes a further generalization to the non-commutative setting.