Definable sets containing productsets in expansions of groups

Abstract

Abstract We consider the question of when sets definable in first-order expansions of groups contain the product of two infinite sets (we refer to this as the “productset property”). We first show that the productset property holds for any definable subset A of an expansion of a discrete amenable group such that A has positive Banach density and the formula x ⋅ y ∈ A {x\cdot y\in A} is stable. For arbitrary expansions of groups, we consider a “1-sided” version of the productset property, which is characterized in various ways using coheir independence. For stable groups, the productset property is equivalent to this 1-sided version, and behaves as a notion of largeness for definable sets, which can be characterized by a natural weakening of model-theoretic genericity. Finally, we use recent work on regularity lemmas in distal theories to prove a definable version of the productset property for sets of positive Banach density definable in certain distal expansions of amenable groups.