Explicit Constructions of Large Families of Generalized More Sums Than Differences Sets

Abstract

A More Sums Than Differences (MSTD) set is a set of integers A contained in {0, ..., n-1} whose sumset A+A is larger than its difference set A-A. While it is known that as n tends to infinity a positive percentage of subsets of {0, ..., n-1} are MSTD sets, the methods to prove this are probabilistic and do not yield nice, explicit constructions. Recently Miller, Orosz and Scheinerman gave explicit constructions of a large family of MSTD sets; though their density is less than a positive percentage, their family's density among subsets of {0, ..., n-1} is at least C/n^4 for some C>0, significantly larger than the previous constructions, which were on the order of 1 / 2^{n/2}. We generalize their method and explicitly construct a large family of sets A with |A+A+A+A| > |(A+A)-(A+A)|. The additional sums and differences allow us greater freedom than in Miller, Orosz and Scheinerman, and we find that for any epsilon>0 the density of such sets is at least C / n^epsilon. In the course of constructing such sets we find that for any integer k there is an A such that |A+A+A+A| - |A+A-A-A| = k, and show that the minimum span of such a set is 30.