Sums of subsets with polynomial restrictions. (Q1867443)

This paper is devoted to the study of restricted sumsets of the following general form. Given sets \(A_1,\dots , A_n\) in a field \(F\), monic polynomials \(P_1, \dots , P_n\) of degree \(m\), the set to be investigated is \[ S = \{a_1+\dots +a_n: a_i\in A_i, P_i(a_i)\neq P_j(a_j)\;\text{ for}\;i\neq j\}. \] We get the ordinary restricted sumset for \(P_i(x)=x\). Write \(K = (| A_n| -1)n-(m+1)n(n-1)/2\). The main result asserts that \(| S| \geq K+1\) under the assumptions that the characteristic of the field is 0 or greater than \(K\), and \(| A_{i+1}| -| A_i| =0\) or 1 for all \(i\). The proof applies \textit{N. Alon}'s Nullstellensatz [Comb. Probab. Comput. 8, 7--29 (1999; Zbl 0920.05026)]. This extends (save the probably unnecessary restriction on \(| A_i| \)) results of \textit{N. Alon}, \textit{M. B. Nathanson} and \textit{I. Ruzsa} [J. Number Theory 56, 404--417 (1996; Zbl 0861.11006)], and \textit{Q.-H. Hou} and \textit{Z.-W. Sun} [Acta Arith. 102, 239--249 (2002; Zbl 0988.11008)].