On additive properties of general sequences

DOI10.1016/0012-365X(94)00108-UMaRDI QIDQ1344613zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Vera T. Sós, András Sárközy, P. Erdős

Publication date 24 August 1995

Published in Discrete Mathematics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.1016/0012-365x(94)00108-u

\(B_k\) sequences additive bases additive representation functions difference bases difference sets survey unsolved problems

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Combinatorial aspects of difference sets (number-theoretic, group-theoretic, etc.) (05B10) Additive bases, including sumsets (11B13) Representation functions (11B34) Other combinatorial number theory (11B75) Special sequences and polynomials (11B83)

Review text

The authors give a survey of their papers on additive properties of general sequences and they prove several further results on the range of additive representation functions and on difference sets. Many related unsolved problems are discussed. Let \(\mathbb{N}= \{1, 2,\dots\}\) and \(\mathbb{N}_0= \mathbb{N}\cup \{0\}\). For \(A\subseteq \mathbb{N}_0\) and \(n\in \mathbb{N}\) the number of solutions of \(n=a+ a'\); \(a,a'\in A\) is denoted by \(r_1 (A,n)\). For the additional conditions \(a\leq a'\) or \(a< a'\) this number is denoted by \(r_2 (A,n)\) or \(r_3 (A,n)\) resp. For given ranges of the representation function \(r_1\) two theorems are proved: Theorem 11. Let \(B\subseteq \mathbb{N}_0\). There exists a set \(A\subseteq \mathbb{N}_0\) such that \(B\) equals \(\{r_1 (A,n)\mid n\in \mathbb{N}\}\) if and only if either \(B= \{0,1\}\) or \(\{0,1, 2\}\subseteq B\). Theorem 12. Let \(B\subseteq \mathbb{N}_0\). There exists a set \(A\subseteq \mathbb{N}_0\) such that \(B\) equals \(\{m\in \mathbb{N}\mid m=r_1 (A,n)\) for infinitely many \(n\in \mathbb{N}\}\). Corresponding results are also stated for \(i=2\) and 3. For \(A\subseteq \mathbb{N}_0\) let \(D(A)= \{a- a'\mid a\in A\), \(a'\in A\), \(a>a'\}\). Generalizing a theorem by \textit{O. Grošek} and \textit{R. Jajcay} [J. Comb. Math. Comb. Comput. 13, 167-174 (1993; Zbl 0777.05025)], the authors show that if a set \(B\subseteq \mathbb{N}\) contains arbitrary long sequences of consecutive integers then there exists a set \(A\subseteq \mathbb{N}_0\) such that \(D(A)=B\). In contrast to sum sets it is possible that a difference set \(D(A)\) is `dense' while \(A\) is extremely `thin' because small differences \(d= a-a'\) can be formed using large elements \(a,a'\in A\). Two related results are given. The question if for a given infinite set \(B\subseteq \mathbb{N}\) the equation \(D(A)=B\) with \(0\in A\) can have a unique solution is answered positively in the case that \(B= D(A_1)\) for an infinite \(B_3\) sequence \(A_1\) with \(0\in A_1\). Apart from using Lemma 1 (to prove theorem 12) all proofs use elementary combinatorial methods only.

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