Approximation of integration over finite groups, difference sets and association schemes (Q6171752)

Let \(G\) be a finite group and \(f : G \rightarrow \mathbb{C}\) be a function. For a non-empty subset \(Y \subseteq G\), let \(I_{Y}( f )=|Y|^{-1}\sum_{y \in Y}f(y)\) be the average of \(f\) over \(Y\). In the paper under review, the authors, using the decomposition of \(f\) into irreducible components of \(\mathbb{C}^{G}\) as a representation of \(G\times G\), define non-negative real numbers \(V (f)\) and \(D(Y)\), each depending only on \(f\) and \(Y\), respectively, such that an inequality of the form \(|I_{G}(f)-I_{Y}(f)| \leq V (f)\cdot D(Y)\) holds. They give a lower bound of \(D(Y)\) depending only on \(|Y|\) and \(|G|\). In particular, if \([a]\) denote the conjugacy class of \(a\) in \(G\), they show hat the lower bound is achieved if and only if \(|[a]|^{-1}\cdot|\{(x,y) \in Y \times Y \mid x^{-1}y \in [a]\}|\) is independent of the choice of \([a]\). The subsets \(Y\) with this property are named by the authors pre-difference sets in \(G\), since the condition is satisfied if \(Y\) is a difference set and, if \(G\) is abelian, the condition is equivalent to that \(Y\) is a difference set. The authors find a non-trivial pre-difference set in the dihedral group of order 16, where no non-trivial difference set exists. Furthermore, the pre-difference sets in non-abelian groups of order 16 are classified.