Related papers: The sum-free process

The semi-random hypergraph process is a natural generalisation of the semi-random graph process, which can be thought of as a one player game. For fixed $r < s$, starting with an empty hypergraph on $n$ vertices, in each round a set of $r$…

A nonzero rational number is called a cube sum if it is of form $a^3+b^3$ with $a,b\in \mathbb{Q}^\times$. In this paper, we prove that for any odd integer $k\geq 1$, there exist infinitely many cube-free odd integers $n$ with exactly $k$…

Let $S\_{N}(P)$ be the poset obtained by adding a dummy vertex on each diagonal edge of the $N$'s of a finite poset $P$. We show that $S\_{N}(S\_{N}(P))$ is $N$-free. It follows that this poset is the smallest $N$-free barycentric…

We prove the existence of primitive sets (sets of integers in which no element divides another) in which the gap between any two consecutive terms is substantially smaller than the best known upper bound for the gaps in the sequence of…

For integers $m$ and $n$, we study the problem of finding good lower bounds for the size of progression-free sets in $(\mathbb{Z}_{m}^{n},+)$. Let $r_{k}(\mathbb{Z}_{m}^{n})$ denote the maximal size of a subset of $\mathbb{Z}_{m}^{n}$…

For a set $A \subset \mathbb{N}$ we characterize in terms of its density when there exists an infinite set $B \subset \mathbb{N}$ and $t \in \{0,1\}$ such that $B+B \subset A-t$, where $B+B : =\{b_1+b_2\colon b_1,b_2 \in B\}$. Specifically,…

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…

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…

Fix integers a_1,...,a_d satisfying a_1 + ... + a_d = 0. Suppose that f : Z_N -> [0,1], where N is prime. We show that if f is ``smooth enough'' then we can bound from below the sum of f(x_1)...f(x_d) over all solutions (x_1,...,x_d) in Z_N…

Eberhard and Pohoata conjectured that every $3$-cube-free subset of $[N]$ has size less than $2N/3+o(N)$. In this paper we show that if we replace $[N]$ with $\mathbb{Z}_N$ the upper bound of $2N/3$ holds, and the bound is tight when $N$ is…

The \emph{sum-product phenomenon} predicts that a finite set $A$ in a ring $R$ should have either a large sumset $A+A$ or large product set $A \cdot A$ unless it is in some sense "close" to a finite subring of $R$. This phenomenon has been…

Let $\mathscr{M}_{(2,1)}(N)$ be the infimum of the largest sum-free subset of any set of $N$ positive integers. An old conjecture in additive combinatorics asserts that there is a constant $c=c(2,1)$ and a function $\omega(N)\to\infty$ as…

Let $A \subset {\mathbb Z}$ be a finite subset. We denote by $\mathcal{B}(A)$ the set of all integers $n \ge 2$ such that $|nA| > (2n-1)(|A|-1)$, where $nA=A+\cdots+A$ denotes the $n$-fold sumset of $A$. The motivation to consider…

A zero-sum sequence over ${\mathbb Z}$ is a sequence with terms in ${\mathbb Z}$ that sum to $0$. It is called minimal if it does not contain a proper zero-sum subsequence. Consider a minimal zero-sum sequence over ${\mathbb Z}$ with…

For a sequence $S$ of terms from an abelian group $G$ of length $|S|$, let $\Sigma_n(S)$ denote the set of all elements that can be represented as the sum of terms in some $n$-term subsequence of $S$. When the subsum set is very small,…

The main result of this paper is the following: for all $b \in \mathbb Z$ there exists $k=k(b)$ such that \[ \max \{ |A^{(k)}|, |(A+u)^{(k)}| \} \geq |A|^b, \] for any finite $A \subset \mathbb Q$ and any non-zero $u \in \mathbb Q$. Here,…

Let $A, B\subseteq \mathbb{Z}$ be finite, nonempty subsets with $\min A=\min B=0$, and let $$\delta(A,B)={\begin{array}{ll} 1 & \hbox{if} A\subseteq B, 0 & \hbox{otherwise.} If $\max B\leq \max A\leq |A|+|B|-3$ and \label{one}|A+B|\leq…

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…

Generalising the Cameron--Erd\H{o}s conjecture to two dimensions, Elsholtz and Rackham conjectured that the number of sum-free subsets of $[n]^2$ is $2^{0.6n^2+O(n)}$. We prove their conjecture.

Let $r \ge 2$ be an integer and let $A$ be a finite, nonempty set of nonzero integers. We will obtain a lower bound for the number of squarefree integers $n$, up to $x$, for which the products $\prod_{p \mid n} (p+a)$ (over primes $p$) are…