Sums of Dilates Over Groups of Prime Order (Q6901007)

The authors study the sums of dilates\N\[\NA + \lambda\cdot A = \{a + \lambda\cdot a' : a,a' \in A\},\N\]\Nwhere \(A\) is a subset of an abelian group and \(\lambda\) is an integer. For a prime \(p\), a subset of residue classes modulo \(p\) with \(|A|\ge \alpha p\), they denote the smallest \(|A + \lambda\cdot A|/p\) by \(ex(\mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z}, \lambda, \alpha)\), where \(0 < \alpha < 1\). Furthermore, they denote \(ex(\lambda, \alpha) = \limsup_{p}ex(\mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z}, \lambda, \alpha)\) and\N\[\Nex(\alpha) = \limsup_{\lambda \rightarrow \infty}ex(\lambda, \alpha).\N\]\NThe authors prove that there exist constants \(C, C' , c > 0\) such that\N\[\Ne^{C' \log^{c}(1/\alpha)}\alpha \le ex(\alpha) \le e^{C\sqrt{\log(1/\alpha)}}\alpha\N\]\Nfor all \(0 < \alpha < \frac{1}{2}\). Furthermore, \(ex(\alpha) < 1\) for all \(0 < \alpha < \frac{1}{2}\).