On the dimension of additive sets

../

---

P. Candela and H. A. Helfgott, "On the dimension of additive sets," Acta Arithmetica 167 (2015), no. 1, 91--100. DOI 10.4064/aa167-1-5. Preprint: arXiv:1407.4987 (2014). The file prints "© Instytut Matematyczny PAN, 2015" in the footer of its first page (printed p. 91); IMPAN's record for the article offers the PDF "Free download under CC-BY license", no version named (https://www.impan.pl/get/doi/10.4064/aa167-1-5, read 2026-10-02), and that named license on the publisher's page decides over the printed line; the site footer "Copyright © 2026 by IMPAN. All rights reserved." speaks for the site, not the article.

Local artifact. The complete Markdown reading copy marks its ten physical pages; physical pages 1--10 correspond to printed pages 91--100. The locators below give the paper's labels and printed pages.

Read status: claims checked. Definitions 1.1--1.3, Theorems 1.4--1.6, Propositions 2.1 and 2.3, and the interval results in Lemmas 3.1--3.2 and Propositions 3.3--3.4 were read clause by clause. Their proofs have not been verified here.

Four different dimensions

Definition 1.1 (p. 91). A set $D$ in an abelian group is dissociated when its subset sums are pairwise distinct, equivalently when the only relation

$$\sum_{d\in D}\varepsilon_d d=0,\qquad \varepsilon_d\in\{-1,0,1\},$$

has every coefficient zero. An inclusion-maximal dissociated subset of $A$ is one that has no proper dissociated superset inside $A$.

Definition 1.2 (p. 91). The dissociativity dimension is

$$d_d(A)=\max\{|D|:D\subset A,\ D\text{ dissociated}\},$$

while the lower dissociativity dimension is

$$d_d^-(A)=\min\{|D|:D\subset A,\ D\text{ inclusion-maximal dissociated}\}.$$

Thus $d_d(A)$ is the size of a maximum-cardinality dissociated subset; $d_d^-(A)$ is the minimum cardinality among inclusion-maximal dissociated subsets. Definition 1.2 itself uses “maximal” once for a set of cardinality $d_d(A)$, but that wording must not collapse the two parameters.

Definition 1.3 (p. 92). The $1$-span of $S\subset G$ is

$$\langle S\rangle =\left\{\sum_{s\in S}\varepsilon_s s: \varepsilon_s\in\{-1,0,1\}\right\}.$$

A $1$-spanning set for $A$ has $A\subset\langle S\rangle$. The internal and ambient versions of the span dimension are respectively

$$d_s(A)=\min\{|S|:S\subset A,\ A\subset\langle S\rangle\}, \qquad d_s^-(A)=\min\{|S|:S\subset G,\ A\subset\langle S\rangle\}.$$

Every inclusion-maximal dissociated subset of $A$ $1$-spans $A$, hence (p. 92)

$$d_s^-(A)\le d_s(A)\le d_d^-(A)\le d_d(A).$$

Main comparison results

Theorem 1.4 (p. 92, equation (1.1)). For every additive set $A$,

$$\frac{d_s^-(A)}{d_d(A)} \ge \frac{1}{\log_4 d_d(A)} \left(1+o(1)_{d_d(A)\to\infty}\right).$$

Theorem 1.5 (p. 93, equation (1.2)). For each positive integer $n$ there is an $A_n\subset\{0,1,2\}^n$ such that

$$d_d(A_n)=n\log_4 n\left(1+o(1)_{n\to\infty}\right)$$

and

$$\frac{d_s(A_n)}{d_d^-(A_n)} \le \frac{1}{\log_4 d_d(A_n)} \left(1+o(1)_{n\to\infty}\right).$$

Theorem 1.6 (p. 93). For $[N]=\{1,\ldots,N\}$,

$$d_s([N])=d_d^-([N]) =\left\lfloor\log_3N\right\rfloor +\left\lceil \log_3(2N)-\left\lfloor\log_3N\right\rfloor \right\rceil.$$

The second rounding sign is a ceiling in the print (p. 93), as Propositions 3.3--3.4 below require.

Proposition 2.1 (p. 94, equation (2.1)). If $D\subset A$ is dissociated and $S\subset G$ $1$-spans $A$, then

$$\frac{|D|}{\log_4|D|} \le |S|\left( 1+\frac{4+\log_2\!\log(4|S|)}{\log_2|D|} \right).$$

This is the quantitative input for Theorem 1.4.

Proposition 2.3 (pp. 95--96). Write $B_n=\{x_1,\ldots,x_n\}$ for the standard basis of $\mathbb R^n$ and $s_n=\sum_{i=1}^n x_i$, and take a nonempty dissociated set $D\subset\{0,1\}^n$. Then

$$A_n=B_n\cup\{s_n\}\cup(2\cdot D)$$

satisfies

$$d_s(A_n)=n+1, \qquad d_d^-(A_n)=d_d(A_n)=n+|D|.$$

Combining this with a dissociated $D_n\subset\{0,1\}^n$ of size $n\log_4n(1+o(1))$ proves Theorem 1.5 (p. 96).

Interval results

Lemma 3.1 (p. 97). For $P_3(k)=\{1,3,\ldots,3^{k-1}\}$,

$$\langle P_3(k)\rangle =\left[-\frac{3^k-1}{2},\frac{3^k-1}{2}\right]\cap\mathbb Z.$$

Lemma 3.2 (p. 97). If $S\subset A$ is dissociated and $A\subset\langle S\rangle$, then $S$ is inclusion-maximal dissociated in $A$.

Put $m=\lfloor\log_3N\rfloor$ and $\{\log_3N\}=\log_3N-m$. Proposition 3.3 (pp. 97--98) says that if and only if

$$\{\log_3N\}<1-\log_3 2,$$

the set $S_1=\{1,3,\ldots,3^m\}$ is simultaneously a minimum internal $1$-spanning set and an inclusion-maximal dissociated subset of $[N]$; in that case

$$d_s([N])=d_d^-([N])=m+1.$$

For the complementary case, let

$$t=1+\sum_{i=0}^{m}3^i=\frac{3^{m+1}+1}{2}.$$

Proposition 3.4 (p. 98) says that if and only if

$$\{\log_3N\}>1-\log_3 2,$$

the set $S_2=\{1,3,\ldots,3^m\}\cup\{t\}$ has those same two properties; in that case

$$d_s([N])=d_d^-([N])=m+2.$$

Equality between the two case thresholds cannot occur for integral $N$, so these propositions give Theorem 1.6.

Bears on

• E0963 asks for $f(n)=\min_{|A|=n}d_d(A)$ over finite $A\subset\mathbb R$, and in particular whether $f(n)\ge\lfloor\log_2n\rfloor$. Candela--Helfgott supply precise vocabulary for its maximum-cardinality parameter $d_d$ and note on p. 93 that the classical interval problem asks for $d_d([N])=\log_2N+O(1)$. They explicitly do not pursue that problem.
• Their exact base-$3$ interval formula is instead for $d_d^-([N])$ and $d_s([N])$. It does not compute $d_d([N])$, determine $f(n)$, or prove the proposed base-$2$ universal lower bound. More generally, maximality plus $1$-spanning gives only the elementary base-$3$ count $|A|\le3^{|D|}$ for an inclusion-maximal $D$. Reading Theorem 1.6 as an answer to E0963 would therefore confuse the minimum size of an inclusion-maximal set with the maximum size of a dissociated set.