Perfect difference sets constructed from Sidon sets

Abstract

A set A of positive integers is called a perfect difference set if every nonzero integer has an unique representation as the difference of two elements of A. We construct dense perfect difference sets from dense Sidon sets. As a consequence of this new approach, we prove that there exists a perfect difference set A such that A(x) >> x^{\sqrt{2}-1-o(1)}. We also prove that there exists a perfect difference set A such that limsup_{x\to \infty}A(x)/\sqrt x\geq 1/\sqrt 2.