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Inverse results for restricted sumsets in \({\mathbb {Z}/p\mathbb {Z}}\)

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Let p be a prime, A and B be subsets of \({\mathbb {Z}/p\mathbb {Z}}\) and S be a subset of \(A\times B\). We write \(A{{\mathop {+}\limits ^{S}}}B:=\{a+b:\;(a,b)\in S\}\). In the first inverse result of this paper, we show that if \(\left| A{{\mathop {+}\limits ^{S}}}B\right| \) and \(|(A\times B)\setminus S|\) are small, then A has a big subset with small difference set. In the second theorem of this paper, we use the previous result to show that if \(\left| A{{\mathop {+}\limits ^{S}}}B\right| \), |A| and |B| are small, then big parts of A and B are contained in short arithmetic progressions with the same difference. As an application of this result, we get an inverse of Pollard’s theorem.

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We would like to thank the referees for their positive and insightful comments and advice to improve this paper.

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Correspondence to Mario Huicochea.

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Huicochea, M. Inverse results for restricted sumsets in \({\mathbb {Z}/p\mathbb {Z}}\). Period Math Hung 88, 281–299 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10998-023-00554-1

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