We establish the restricted sumset analog of the celebrated conjecture of Sárközy on additive decompositions of the set of nonzero squares over a finite field. More precisely, we show that if $q>13$ is an odd prime power, then the set of nonzero squares in $\mathbb {F}_q$ cannot be written as a restricted sumset $A \hat {+} A$, extending a result of Shkredov. More generally, we study restricted sumsets in multiplicative subgroups over finite fields as well as restricted sumsets in perfect powers (over integers) motivated by a question of Erdős and Moser. We also prove an analog of van Lint–MacWilliams’ conjecture for restricted sumsets, which appears to be the first analogue of Erdős--Ko–Rado theorem in a family of Cayley sum graphs.

Let $G$ be a compact Abelian group and $E$ a subset of the group $\widehat {G}$ of continuous characters of $G$. We study Arens regularity-related properties of the ideals $L_E^1(G)$ of $L^1(G)$ that are made of functions whose Fourier transform is supported on $E\subseteq \widehat {G}$. Arens regularity of $L_E^1(G)$, the centre of $L_E^1(G)^{\ast \ast }$ and the size of $L_E^1(G)^\ast /\mathcal {WAP}(L_E^1(G))$ are studied. We establish general conditions for the regularity of $L_E^1(G)$ and deduce from them that $L_E^1(G)$ is not strongly Arens irregular if $E$ is a small-2 set (i.e. $\mu \ast \mu \in L^1(G)$ for every $\mu \in M_E^1(G)$), which is not a $\Lambda (1)$-set, and it is extremely non-Arens regular if $E$ is not a small-2 set. We deduce also that $L_E^1(G)$ is not Arens regular when $\widehat {G}\setminus E$ is a Lust-Piquard set.

Let $\mathcal {F}$ denote the set of functions $f \colon [-1/2,1/2] \to \mathbb {R}_{\geq 0}$ such that $\int f = 1$. We determine the value of $\inf _{f \in \mathcal {F}} \| f \ast f \|_2^2$ up to a $4 \cdot 10^{-6}$ error, thereby making progress on a problem asked by Ben Green. Furthermore, we prove that a unique minimizer exists. As a corollary, we obtain improvements on the maximum size of $B_h[g]$ sets for $(g,h) \in \{ (2,2),(3,2),(4,2),(1,3),(1,4)\}$.

Let k and l be positive integers satisfying $k \ge 2, l \ge 1$ . A set $\mathcal {A}$ of positive integers is an asymptotic basis of order k if every large enough positive integer can be represented as the sum of k terms from $\mathcal {A}$ . About 35 years ago, P. Erdős asked: does there exist an asymptotic basis of order k where all the subset sums with at most l terms are pairwise distinct with the exception of a finite number of cases as long as $l \le k - 1$ ? We use probabilistic tools to prove the existence of an asymptotic basis of order $2k+1$ for which all the sums of at most k elements are pairwise distinct except for ‘small’ numbers.

The purpose of this note is to construct an example of a discrete non-abelian group G and a subset E of G, not contained in any abelian subgroup, that is a completely bounded $\Lambda (p)$ set for all $p<\infty ,$ but is neither a Leinert set nor a weak Sidon set.

In his seminal work on Sidon sets, Pisier found an important characterization of Sidonicity: A set is Sidon if and only if it is proportionally quasi-independent. Later, it was shown that Sidon sets were proportionally “special” Sidon in several other ways. Here, we prove that Sidon sets in torsion-free groups are proportionally $n$-degree independent, a higher order of independence than quasi-independence, and we use this to prove that Sidon sets are proportionally Sidon with Sidon constants arbitrarily close to one, the minimum possible value.

A subset $E$ of a discrete abelian group is called $\varepsilon$-Kronecker if all $E$-functions of modulus one can be approximated to within ϵ by characters. $E$ is called a Sidon set if all bounded $E$-functions can be interpolated by the Fourier transform of measures on the dual group. As $\varepsilon$-Kronecker sets with $\varepsilon \,<\,2$ possess the same arithmetic properties as Sidon sets, it is natural to ask if they are Sidon. We use the Pisier net characterization of Sidonicity to prove this is true.

For $n\in \mathbb{Z}$ and $A\subseteq \mathbb{Z}$, define $r_{A}(n)$ and ${\it\delta}_{A}(n)$ by $r_{A}(n)=\#\{(a_{1},a_{2})\in A^{2}:n=a_{1}+a_{2},a_{1}\leq a_{2}\}$ and ${\it\delta}_{A}(n)=\#\{(a_{1},a_{2})\in A^{2}:n=a_{1}-a_{2}\}$. We call $A$ a unique representation bi-basis if $r_{A}(n)=1$ for all $n\in \mathbb{Z}$ and ${\it\delta}_{A}(n)=1$ for all $n\in \mathbb{Z}\setminus \{0\}$. In this paper, we prove that there exists a unique representation bi-basis $A$ such that $\limsup _{x\rightarrow \infty }A(-x,x)/\sqrt{x}\geq 1/\sqrt{2}$.

In the dual object of an infinite compact, connected group, every infinite Sidon set contains an infinite subset on which full interpolation can be performed using very small classes of measures (discrete measures on arbitrarily small sets or nonnegative discrete measures). In particular, the Figà-Talamanca–Rider subset of an infinite product of compact, connected, simple Lie groups has these kinds of interpolation. This substantially improves previous interpolation results.

A weighted generalization of a p-Sidon set, called an (a, p)-Sidon set, is introduced and studied for infinite, non-abelian, connected, compact groups G. The entire dual object Ĝ is shown never to be central (p − 1, p)-Sidon for 1 ≦ p < 2, nor central (1 + ε, 2)-Sidon for ε > 0. Local (p, p)-Sidon sets are shown to be identical to local Sidon sets. Examples are constructed of infinite non-Sidon sets which are central (2p − 1, p)-Sidon, or (p − 1, p)-Sidon, for 1 < p < 2. Full m-fold FTR sets are proved not to be central (a, 2m/(m + 1))-Sidon for any a > 1.

Let G be any compact group, connected or disconnected, with dual object Ĝ. We define a family of local Sidon subsets of Ĝ in terms of allowable images of the representations. Using this family we develop a straightforward criterion whereby the existence of infinite Sidon subsets of Ĝ may be decided.