Related papers: Product-free subsets of groups, then and now
For any group G of order n, a subset A of G is said to be product-free if there is no solution of the equation ab=c with a,b,c in A. Previous results of Gowers showed that the size of any product-free subset of G is at most n/d^(1/3), where…
A subset of a group is said to be product-free if it does not contain three elements satisfying the equation $xy=z$. We give a negative answer to a question of Babai and S\'os on the existence of large product-free sets by model theoretic…
A subset $A$ of a group $G$ is called product-free if there is no solution to $a=bc$ with $a,b,c$ all in $A$. It is easy to see that the largest product-free subset of the symmetric group $S_n$ is obtained by taking the set of all odd…
Babai and S\'os have asked whether there exists a constant c>0 such that every finite group G has a product-free subset of size at least c|G|: that is, a subset X that does not contain three elements x, y and z with xy=z. In this paper we…
If $G$ is a group, we say a subset $S$ of $G$ is product-free if the equation $xy=z$ has no solutions with $x,y,z \in S$. For $D \in \mathbb{N}$, a group $G$ is said to be $D$-quasirandom if the minimal dimension of a nontrivial complex…
We first note that a result of Gowers on product-free sets in groups has an unexpected consequence: If k is the minimal degree of a representation of the finite group G, then for every subset B of G with $|B| > |G| / k^{1/3}$ we have B^3 =…
Let A be a subset of a finite abelian group G. We say that A is sum-free if there is no solution of the equation x + y = z, with x, y, z belonging to the set A. In this paper we shall characterise the largest possible sum-free subsets of G…
Let $G$ be a group, and $S$ a non-empty subset of $G$. Then $S$ is \emph{product-free} if $ab\notin S$ for all $a, b \in S$. We say $S$ is \emph{locally maximal product-free} if $S$ is product-free and not properly contained in any other…
We define a notion of free product for coarse spaces that generalizes the corresponding notion of a free product for groups. We show that free products preserve coarse properties such as coarse property C, finite coarse decomposition…
Let $G$ be a unique product group, i.e., for any two finite subsets $A$ and $B$ of $G$ there exists $x\in G$ which can be uniquely expressed as a product of an element of $A$ and an element of $B$. We prove that, if $C$ is a finite subset…
Let A be a subset of an abelian group G. We say that A is sum-free if there do not exist x,y and z in A satisfying x + y = z. We determine, for any G, the cardinality of the largest sum-free subset of G. This equals c(G)|G| where c(G) is a…
Let $G$ be a finite non-solvable group. We prove that there exists a proper subgroup $A$ of $G$ such that $G$ is the product of three conjugates of $A$, thus replacing an earlier upper bound of $36$ with the smallest possible value. The…
This paper studies the maximal size of product-free sets in Z/nZ. These are sets of residues for which there is no solution to ab == c (mod n) with a,b,c in the set. In a previous paper we constructed an infinite sequence of integers…
We adapt Safin's result on powers of sets in free groups to obtain Helfgott type growth in free products: if A is any finite subset of a free product of two arbitrary groups then either A is conjugate into one of the factors, or the size of…
In this paper, we study product-free subsets of the free semigroup over a finite alphabet $A$. We prove that the maximum density of a product-free subset of the free semigroup over $A$, with respect to the natural measure that assigns a…
In this paper, we are interested in a generalization of the notion of sum-free sets. We address a conjecture first made in the 90s by Chung and Goldwasser. Recently, after some computer checks, this conjecture was formulated again by…
Let $G$ be a finite group, and let $r_{3}(G)$ represent the size of the largest subset of $G$ without non-trivial three-term progressions. In a recent breakthrough, Croot, Lev and Pach proved that $r_{3}(C_{4}^{n}) \leqslant (3.61)^{n}$,…
Recall that a subset $X$ of a group $G$ is 'product-free' if $X^2\cap X=\varnothing$, ie if $xy\notin X$ for all $x,y\in X$. Let $G$ be a group definable in a distal structure. We prove there are constants $c>0$ and $\delta\in(0,1)$ such…
Given a large finite point set, $P\subset \mathbb R^2$, we obtain upper bounds on the number of triples of points that determine a given pair of dot products. That is, for any pair of positive real numbers, $(\alpha, \beta)$, we bound the…
We study progression-free sets in the abelian groups $G=(\mathbb{Z}_m^n,+)$. Let $r_k(\mathbb{Z}_m^n)$ denote the maximal size of a set $S \subset \mathbb{Z}_m^n$ that does not contain a proper arithmetic progression of length $k$. We give…