On unique sums in Abelian groups

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Benjamin Bedert, "On unique sums in Abelian groups," arXiv:2303.15134 (2023). The arXiv record (https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.15134, read 2026-10-02) names the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.

Reading copy. Complete Markdown.

Section 3: dimension and subset-sum span

The relevant material is Section 3, pp. 4--8 of the source.

• Definition 3 (p. 4). A set $S$ in a finite abelian group is dissociated if

$$\sum_{s\in S}\mu_s s=0,\qquad \mu_s\in\{-1,0,1\},$$

forces every $\mu_s$ to vanish. Equivalently, distinct subsets of $S$ have distinct sums.

• Definition 4 (p. 5). The additive dimension $\dim(S)$ is the largest cardinality of a dissociated subset of $S$.
• Definition 5, equation (1) (p. 5). The additive span is the subset-sum set

$$\Sigma(Z)=\left\{\sum_{z\in Z}\varepsilon_z z: \varepsilon_z\in\{0,1\}\right\}.$$

The definition extends to finite multisets, respecting multiplicity; $Z$ is an additive basis for $G$ when $\Sigma(Z)=G$.

Lemma 3 (p. 5). If $D\subseteq S$ is a maximal dissociated subset with $|D|=\dim(S)$, then

$$S\subseteq\left\{\sum_{d\in D}\mu_d d: \mu_d\in\{-1,0,1\}\right\}.$$

Indeed, adjoining any $s\in S\setminus D$ creates a nontrivial ternary relation, and the coefficient of $s$ cannot be zero because $D$ is dissociated.

Proposition 1, equation (2) (pp. 5--8). For every finite multiset $Z$ in an abelian group,

$$|\Sigma(Z)|\leq \binom{|Z|}{\dim(Z)} \binom{|Z|+\dim(Z)}{\dim(Z)}.$$

For each $y\in\Sigma(Z)$, Bedert starts with a $0$-$1$ expression for $y$ and chooses, among nonnegative-integer expressions having no greater total coefficient sum, one with minimal support. A relation between two distinct submultisets of that support can be oriented from the larger side to the smaller and used to reduce the support without increasing the coefficient sum. Thus the minimal support is dissociated. There are at most $\binom{|Z|}{d}$ choices of an enlarged $d$-element support and $\binom{|Z|+d}{d}$ nonnegative coefficient vectors of total at most $|Z|$, where $d=\dim(Z)$; counting these compressed expressions proves the bound.

Corollary 1, equation (3) (pp. 5 and 8). The binomial estimate gives the more convenient form

$$|\Sigma(Z)|\leq 2^{2d(\log_2(|Z|/d)+2)} =\left(\frac{4|Z|}{d}\right)^{2d}, \qquad d=\dim(Z).$$

The source also shows that the factor $\log_2(|Z|/d)$ in the exponent cannot be removed for multisets: $k$ copies of each coordinate vector in $\mathbb Z^d$ have dimension $d$ but additive span of size $(k+1)^d$ (p. 6).

Relevance and quantitative limitation for Problem 963

The two compressions answer different counting questions. Lemma 3 compresses the elements of $A$ into a ternary cube on a maximal dissociated set. The paper states Lemma 3 for subsets of a finite abelian group, but its proof uses only the group operation and applies verbatim in $\mathbb R$. For an $n$-element real set $A$, this immediately gives

$$n\leq 3^d, \qquad d\geq\left\lceil\log_3 n\right\rceil =\left(\frac{1}{\log_2 3}+o(1)\right)\log_2 n,$$

where $d=\dim(A)$ and $1/\log_2 3\approx0.6309$. Problem 963 asks for the coefficient $1$, namely $d\geq\lfloor\log_2 n\rfloor$.

Proposition 1 instead compresses the $0$-$1$ subset sums of $A$ to nonnegative combinations with dissociated support. Those combinations are no longer $0$-$1$: their coefficients may have total as large as $n$. The second binomial factor counts this coefficient freedom, so the compression does not replace the ternary cube by a binary one.

Quantitatively, even the elementary lower bound $|\Sigma(A)|\geq n$ combined with Corollary 1 yields only

$$\log_2 n\leq 2d\left(\log_2(n/d)+2\right).$$

At the scale sought in Problem 963, $d=c\log_2 n$, the right-hand side is of order $(\log n)^2$, not of order $\log n$ with a sharp constant. More starkly, the displayed inequality is already compatible with $d=1$ for every $n$. Thus the span bound by itself cannot improve the ternary-span baseline, much less recover the exact base-two coefficient; that would require additional structure special to subsets of $\mathbb R$ or a substantially sharper encoding.

Read status: the complete Markdown was read. The definitions, Lemma 3, Proposition 1, Corollary 1, and their proofs and examples in Section 3 were checked against pp. 4--8. No proof was independently verified.

Bears on. Problem 963: Lemma 3, carried over to $\mathbb R$ by the same proof, supplies the general $\log_3 n$ lower bound for the largest dissociated subset, while the subset-sum-span compression explains a natural counting route and the coefficient loss that prevents it from reaching the conjectured $\lfloor\log_2 n\rfloor$ bound.