English

Sum-free Sets of Integers with a Forbidden Sum

Combinatorics 2018-12-27 v1 Group Theory Number Theory

Abstract

A set of integers is sum-free if it contains no solution to the equation x+y=zx+y=z. We study sum-free subsets of the set of integers [n]={1,,n}[n]=\{1,\ldots,n\} for which the integer 2n+12n+1 cannot be represented as a sum of their elements. We prove a bound of O(2n/3)O(2^{n/3}) on the number of these sets, which matches, up to a multiplicative constant, the lower bound obtained by considering all subsets of Bn={23(n+1),,n}B_n = \{ \lceil \frac{2}{3}(n+1) \rceil, \ldots, n \}. A main ingredient in the proof is a stability theorem saying that if a subset of [n][n] of size close to Bn|B_n| contains only a few subsets that contradict the sum-freeness or the forbidden sum, then it is almost contained in BnB_n. Our results are motivated by the question of counting symmetric complete sum-free subsets of cyclic groups of prime order. The proofs involve Freiman's 3k43k-4 theorem, Green's arithmetic removal lemma, and structural results on independent sets in hypergraphs.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1812.09594,
  title  = {Sum-free Sets of Integers with a Forbidden Sum},
  author = {Ishay Haviv},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1812.09594},
  year   = {2018}
}

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26 pages