Locality in Sumsets

arXiv2304.01189MaRDI QIDQ6509486FDOQ6509486

Peter Keevash, Peter van Hintum

Abstract: Motivated by the Polynomial Freiman-Ruzsa (PFR) Conjecture, we develop a theory of locality in sumsets, with applications to John-type approximation and sets with small doubling. First we show that if $AsubsetmathbbZ$ with $|A+A|le(1-epsilon)2^d|A|$ is non-degenerate then $A$ is covered by $O(2^d)$ translates of a $d$-dimensional generalised arithmetic progression ($d$-GAP) $P$ with $|P|le{O}_{d,epsilon}(|A|)$; thus we obtain one of the polynomial bounds required by PFR, under the non-degeneracy assumption that $A$ is not efficiently covered by $O_{d,epsilon}(1)$ translates of a $(d-1)$-GAP. We also prove a stability result showing for any $epsilon,alpha>0$ that if $AsubsetmathbbZ$ with $|A+A|le(2-epsilon)2^d|A|$ is non-degenerate then some $A^{\prime }subsetA$ with $|A^{\prime }|>(1-alpha)|A|$ is efficiently covered by either a $(d+1)$-GAP or $O_{alpha}(1)$ translates of a $d$-GAP. This `dimension-free' bound for approximate covering makes for a stark contrast with exact covering, where the required number of translates grows exponentially with $d$. We further show that if $AsubsetmathbbZ$ is non-degenerate with $|A+A|le(2^d+ell)|A|$ and $ellle0.1cdot{2}^d$ then $A$ is covered by $ell+1$ translates of a $d$-GAP $P$ with $|P|le{O}_d(|A|)$; this is tight, in that $ell+1$ cannot be replaced by any smaller number. The above results also hold for $Asubsetmathbb{R}^d$, replacing GAPs by a suitable common generalisation of GAPs and convex bodies. In this setting the non-degeneracy condition holds automatically, so we obtain essentially optimal bounds with no additional assumption on $A$. These results are all deduced from a unifying theory, in which we introduce a new intrinsic structural approximation of any set, which we call the `additive hull', and develop its theory via a refinement of Freiman's theorem with additional separation properties.

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Variational problems in a geometric measure-theoretic setting (49Q20) Approximation by convex sets (52A27) Inequalities and extremum problems involving convexity in convex geometry (52A40) Inverse problems of additive number theory, including sumsets (11P70)

This page was built for publication: Locality in Sumsets

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q6509486)