For a finite abelian group G and a splitting field K of G, let (G,K) denote the largest integer l ∈ ℕ for which there is a sequence $S=g₁·...·g_l$ over G such that $(X^{g₁}-a₁)·...·(X^{g_l}-a_l)\ne 0\in K\left[G\right]$ for all $a₁,...,a_l\in K^{\times }$. If (G) denotes the Davenport constant of G, then there is the straightforward inequality (G) - 1 ≤ (G,K). Equality holds for a variety of groups, and a conjecture of W. Gao et al. states that equality holds for all groups. We offer further groups for which equality holds, but we also give the first examples of groups G for which (G) -...

A subset $S$ of a finite abelian group, written additively, is called zero-sumfree if the sum of the elements of each non-empty subset of $S$ is non-zero. We investigate the maximal cardinality of zero-sumfree sets, i.e., the (small) Olson constant. We determine the maximal cardinality of such sets for several new types of groups; in particular, $p$-groups with large rank relative to the exponent, including all groups with exponent at most five. These results are derived as consequences of more general...

The continuity of densities given by the weight functions $n^{\alpha }$, $\alpha \in [-1,\infty [$, with respect to the parameter $\alpha$ is investigated.

Let $\varphi (x_1,...,x_h,y)=u_1{x}_1+\cdots +u_h{x}_h+vy$ be a linear form with nonzero integer coefficients $u_1,...,u_h,v.$ Let $𝒜=(A_1,...,A_h)$ be an $h$-tuple of finite sets of integers and let $B$ be an infinite set of integers. Define the representation function associated to the form $\varphi$ and the sets $𝒜$ and $B$ as follows :$$R_{𝒜,B}^{\left(\varphi \right)}\left(n\right)=\text{card}\left(\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \{(a_1,...,a_h,b)\in A_1& \times \cdots \times A_h\times B:\hfill \\ & \varphi (a_1,...,a_h,b)=n\}\hfill \end{array}\right).$$If this representation function is constant, then the set $B$ is periodic and the period of $B$ will be bounded in terms of the diameter of the finite set $\{\varphi (a_1,...,a_h,0):(a_1,...,a_h)\in A_1\times \cdots \times A_h\}.$ Other results for complementing sets with respect to linear forms are also proved.

Soit $c\>1$, $p$ un nombre premier et $𝒜$ une partie de $\mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z}$ de cardinal supérieur à $c\sqrt{p}$ telle que pour tout sous-ensemble non vide $ℬ$ de $𝒜$, on a ${\sum }_{b\in ℬ}b\ne 0$. On montre qu’il existe $s$ premier à $p$ tel que l’ensemble $s.𝒜$ est très concentré autour de l’origine et qu’il est presque entièrement composé d’éléments de partie fractionnaire positive. Plus précisément, on a$$\sum _{a\in 𝒜}∥\frac{sa}{p}∥\<1+O(p^{-1/4}lnp)\text{et}\sum _{\begin{array}{c}a\in 𝒜,\\ \{sa/p\}\ge 1/2\end{array}}∥\frac{sa}{p}∥=O(p^{-1/4}lnp).$$On montre également que les termes d’erreurs ne peuvent être remplacés par $o\left(p^{-1/2}\right)$.

We present a system of interrelated conjectures which can be considered as restricted addition counterparts of classical theorems due to Kneser, Kemperman, and Scherk. Connections with the theorem of Cauchy-Davenport, conjecture of Erdős-Heilbronn, and polynomial method of Alon-Nathanson-Ruzsa are discussed.The paper assumes no expertise from the reader and can serve as an introduction to the subject.

We show that if A and B are finite sets of real numbers, then the number of triples (a,b,c) ∈ A × B × (A ∪ B) with a + b = 2c is at most (0.15+o(1))(|A|+|B|)² as |A| + |B| → ∞. As a corollary, if A is antisymmetric (that is, A ∩ (-A) = ∅), then there are at most (0.3+o(1))|A|² triples (a,b,c) with a,b,c ∈ A and a - b = 2c. In the general case where A is not necessarily antisymmetric, we show that the number of triples (a,b,c) with a,b,c ∈ A and a - b = 2c is at most (0.5+o(1))|A|². These estimates...

Given an additively written abelian group G and a set X ⊆ G, we let (X) denote the monoid of zero-sum sequences over X and (X) the Davenport constant of (X), namely the supremum of the positive integers n for which there exists a sequence x₁⋯xₙ in (X) such that ${\sum }_{i\in I}{x}_i\ne 0$ for each non-empty proper subset I of 1,...,n. In this paper, we mainly investigate the case when G is a power of ℤ and X is a box (i.e., a product of intervals of G). Some mixed sets (e.g., the product of a group by a box) are studied...

En théorie additive des nombres, le théorème de Kneser joue aujourd’hui un rôle central dans un grand nombre de démonstrations. Hamidoune a récemment développé une approche alternative au théorème de Kneser, qu’il a appelé méthode isopérimétrique et qui lui a permis de donner de nouvelles preuves et de nombreuses généralisations de résultats classiques. Cependant, jusqu’à maintenant, on ne connaissait pas de démonstration du théorème de Kneser par cette méthode. Nous proposons ici une nouvelle approche...