Constructions of generalized Sidon sets. (Q2490858)

The authors study sets \(S\subset \mathbb Z\cap [1,n]\) or \(S\subset \mathbb Z_n\) such that every integer (or residue) has at most \(g\) representations as a sum of two elements of \(S\), order of summands taken into account; for \(g=2\) this is the class of Sidon sets. The maximal cardinalities are denoted by \(R(g,n)\) and \(C(g,n)\), resp. Known bounds and constructions are reviewed and new constructions are given. These are mostly formed as unions of Sidon sets arising in the constructions of Singer, Bose and the reviewer. The asymptotic behaviour of these functions is known only for \(g=2,3\) (and in the case of \(C(g,n)\), only for special values of \(n\)). The authors are particularly interested in \[ \sigma (g) = \liminf R(g,n)/\sqrt {[g/2]n} , \] and they conjecture that \(\sigma (g)\to \sqrt 2\). The known lower and upper bounds are \(11/\sqrt {96}=1.225\dots \) and 1.8391. The paper also contains figures, graphs and open problems to meditate on.