A quadratic lower bound for subset sums

Abstract

Let A be a finite nonempty subset of an additive abelian group G, and let Σ(A) denote the set of all group elements representable as a sum of some subset of A. We prove that |Σ(A)| >= |H| + 1/64 |A H|^2 where H is the stabilizer of Σ(A). Our result implies that Σ(A) = Z/nZ for every set A of units of Z/nZ with |A| >= 8 \sqrt{n}. This consequence was first proved by Erdős and Heilbronn for n prime, and by Vu (with a weaker constant) for general n.