Related papers: Sets of integers with no large sum-free subset
Motivated by questions asked by Erdos, we prove that any set $A\subset{\mathbb N}$ with positive upper density contains, for any $k\in{\mathbb N}$, a sumset $B_1+\cdots+B_k$, where $B_1,\dots,B_k\subset{\mathbb N}$ are infinite. Our proof…
Erd\H{o}s showed that every set of $n$ positive integers contains a subset of size at least $n/(k+1)$ containing no solutions to $x_1 + \cdots + x_k = y$. We prove that the constant $1/(k+1)$ here is best possible by showing that if $(F_m)$…
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…
Given a linear equation $\mathcal{L}$, a set $A \subseteq [n]$ is $\mathcal{L}$-free if $A$ does not contain any `non-trivial' solutions to $\mathcal{L}$. In this paper we consider the following three general questions: (i) What is the size…
Within the scope of elementary number theory, we prove that, as the main result, if $1 \leq x < y < z$ are integers such that at least one of $y, z, x+y$ is prime then $x^{n}+y^{n} \neq z^{n}$ for every odd integer $n \geq 3$. This result…
Given a linear equation L, a set A of integers is L-free if A does not contain any non-trivial solutions to L. Meeks and Treglown showed that for certain kinds of linear equations, it is NP-complete to decide if a given set of integers…
We estimate the sizes of the sumset A + A and the productset A $\cdot$ A in the special case that A = S (x, y), the set of positive integers n less than or equal to x, free of prime factors exceeding y.
Let $s(n)$ denote the sum of proper divisors of an integer $n$. In 1992, Erd\H{o}s, Granville, Pomerance, and Spiro (EGPS) conjectured that if $\mathcal{A}$ is a set of integers with asymptotic density zero then $s^{-1}(\mathcal{A})$ also…
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…
Arbitrarily sparse sets A of integers are constructed with the property that every integer can be represented uniquely in the form n = a + a', where a and a' belong to the set A and a < a' or a = a'. Some related open problems are stated.
There exists a set $A$ of positive integers such that the number of representations of a large positive integer $m$ as a sum of two elements of $A$ grows with a lower bound of order $\log m$, but for which there is no subset $D$ of $A$…
Suppose that P is an infinite set of primes such that P = A + B + C, where A,B,C are sets with at least two elements. We show that if P(x) > c x/log^d x (where P(x) = the number of elements of P that are <= x), and if A,B,C is a "regular"…
Let A be a nonempty finite set of relatively prime positive integers, and let p_A(n) denote the number of partitions of n with parts in A. An elementary arithmetic argument is used to obtain an asymptotic formula for p_A(n).
We study the number of $k$-element sets $A \subset \{1,\ldots,N\}$ with $|A + A| \leq K|A|$ for some (fixed) $K > 0$. Improving results of the first author and of Alon, Balogh, Samotij and the second author, we determine this number up to a…
The pentagonal numbers are the integers given by $p_5(n)=n(3n-1)/2\ (n=0,1,2,\ldots)$. Let $(b,c,d)$ be one of the triples $(1,1,2),(1,2,3),(1,2,6)$ and $(2,3,4)$. We show that each $n=0,1,2,\ldots$ can be written as $w+bx+cy+dz$ with…
It is a classical fact that every $n$-element set of positive reals has at least $\binom{n+1}{2}+1$ distinct subset sums, with equality exactly for homogeneous arithmetic progressions (when $n\geq 4$). We establish stability versions of…
We prove that every subset of $\{1,\dots, N\}$ which does not contain any solutions to the equation $x+y+z=3w$ has at most $\exp(-c(\log N)^{1/5+o(1)})N$ elements, for some $c>0$. This theorem improves upon previous estimates. Additionally,…
A Sidon set is a set A of integers such that no integer has two essentially distinct representations as the sum of two elements of A. More generally, for every positive integer g, a B_2[g]-set is a set A of integers such that no integer has…
We use topological ideas to show that, assuming the conjecture of Erd\"(o)s on subsets of positive integers having no $p$ terms in arithmetic progression (A. P.), there must exist a subset $M_p$ of positive integers with no $p$ terms in A.…
A finite set of integers $A$ is a sum-dominant (also called an More Sums Than Differences or MSTD) set if $|A+A| > |A-A|$. While almost all subsets of $\{0, \dots, n\}$ are not sum-dominant, interestingly a small positive percentage are. We…