Sumset

In additive combinatorics, the sumset (also called the Minkowski sum) of two subsets A and B of an abelian group G (written additively) is defined to be the set of all sums of an element from A with an element from B. That is,

.

The n-fold iterated sumset of A is

where there are n summands.

Many of the questions and results of additive combinatorics and additive number theory can be phrased in terms of sumsets. For example, Lagrange's four-square theorem can be written succinctly in the form

where A is the set of square numbers. A subject that has received a fair amount of study is that of sets with small doubling, where the size of the set A+A is small (compared to the size of A); see for example Freiman's theorem.

See also

• Minkowski addition (geometry)
• Restricted sumset
• Sidon set
• Sum-free set
• Schnirelmann density
• Shapley–Folkman lemma

References

• Henry Mann (1976). Addition Theorems: The Addition Theorems of Group Theory and Number Theory (Corrected reprint of 1965 Wiley ed.). Huntington, New York: Robert E. Krieger Publishing Company. ISBN 0-88275-418-1. 
• Melvyn B. Nathanson, Additive Number Theory: Inverse Problems and Geometry of Sumsets volume 165 of GTM. Springer, 1996. Zbl 0859.11003.
• Terence Tao and Van Vu, Additive Combinatorics, Cambridge University Press 2006.