On additive representation functions of finite sets. I: Variation (Q2448979)

Let \(A\) be a subset of \(\mathbb Z_m\), the additive group of the modulo \(m\in\mathbb N\) residue classes, and for \(n\in\mathbb Z_m\), let \(R(\mathcal A, n)\) denote the number of solutions of \(a+a'=n\) with \(a,a'\in A\). In this paper lower and upper bounds for \(| R(\mathcal A, n+1)-R(\mathcal A, n)| \) are given. Let \(B(\mathcal A)=| \{a\in\mathbb Z_m: a-1\not\in\mathcal A, a\in\mathcal A\}| \). Theorem 1 states that if \(m\in\mathbb N\), \(m\geq 2\), and \(\mathcal A\neq\emptyset\), then \[ \sum_{n=1}^m(R(\mathcal A, n+1)-R(\mathcal A, n))^2\geq B(\mathcal A)^2. \] Theorem 2 states that if \(m\in\mathbb N\), \(m\to+\infty\), then there is a set \(\mathcal A\subset\mathbb Z_m\) such that \(B(\mathcal A)\geq(1/2+o(1)) m^{1/2}\) and \(R(\mathcal A, n+1)-R(\mathcal A, n)\leq 2\) for all \(n\in\mathbb Z_m\). Theorem 3 states that there is a number \(m_0\) such that if \(m>m_0\) and \(u\) is a real number with \(m^{1/2}\leq u\leq m\), then there is a set \(\mathcal A\subset\mathbb Z_m\) with \(u/17<B(\mathcal A)\leq u\) and \[ \max_{n\in\mathbb Z_m}| R(\mathcal A, n+1)-R(\mathcal A, n)| <140 B(\mathcal A)m^{-1/2}(\log m)^{1/2}. \]