Adding generators in cyclic groups

Abstract

For a cyclic group $a$, define the atom of $a$ as the set of all elements generating $a$. Given any two elements $a,b$ of a finite cyclic group $G$, we study the sumset of the atom of $a$ and the atom of $b$. It is known that such a sumset is a disjoint union of atoms. The goal of this paper is to offer a deeper understanding of this phenomenon, by determining which atoms make up the sum of two given atoms and by computing the exact number of representations of each element of the sumset.