Arithmetic progressions in sumsets
1. Introduction. Let A,B ⊂ [1,N] be sets of integers, |A|=|B|=cN. Bourgain [2] proved that A+B always contains an arithmetic progression of length . Our aim is to show that this is not very far from the best possible. Theorem 1. Let ε be a positive number. For every prime p > p₀(ε) there is a symmetric set A of residues mod p such that |A| > (1/2-ε)p and A + A contains no arithmetic progression of length (1.1). A set of residues can be used to get a set of integers in an obvious way. Observe...