Related papers: Product-free sets in the free semigroup

It is well-known that for a prime $p\equiv 2\pmod 3$ and integer $n\ge 1$, the maximum possible size of a sum-free subset of the elementary abelian group $\mathbb Z_p^n$ is $\frac13\,(p+1)p^{n-1}$. We establish a matching stability result…

Let $G$ be a finite group and $S$ a subset of $G$. Then $S$ is product-free if $S \cap SS = \emptyset$, and complete if $G^{\ast} \subseteq S \cup SS$. A product-free set is locally maximal if it is not contained in a strictly larger…

A set $A\subset \mathbb{F}_p^n$ is sum-free if $A+A$ does not intersect $A$. If $p\equiv 2 \mod 3$, the maximal size of a sum-free in $\mathbb{F}_p^n$ is known to be $(p^n+p^{n-1})/3$. We show that if a sum-free set $A\subset…

Let $G$ be a finite group multiplicatively written. The small Davenport constant of $G$ is the maximum positive integer ${\sf d}(G)$ such that there exists a sequence $S$ of length ${\sf d}(G)$ for which every subsequence of $S$ is…

We present a construction that yields infinite families of non-isomorphic semidirect products $N \rtimes F_m$ sharing a specified profinite completion. Within each family, $m \ge 2$ is constant and $N$ is a fixed group. For $m=2$ we can…

A subset $A$ of a given finite abelian group $G$ is called $(k,l)$-sum-free if the sum of $k$ (not necessarily distinct) elements of $A$ does not equal the sum of $l$ (not necessarily distinct) elements of $A$. We are interested in finding…

This paper studies the classes of semigoups and monoids with context-free and deterministic context-free word problem. First, some examples are exhibited to clarify the relationship between these classes and their connection with the…

It is shown that the big free group (the set of countably-long words over a countable alphabet) is almost free, in the sense that any function from the alphabet to a compact topological group factors through a homomorphism. This statement…

We consider the free additive convolution semigroup $\lbrace \mu^{\boxplus t}:\,t\ge 1\rbrace$ and determine the local behavior of the density of $\mu^{\boxplus t}$ at the endpoints and at any singular point of its support. We then study…

We present an elementary combinatorial argument showing that the density of a progression-free set in a finite r-dimensional vector space is O(1/r).

We derive a scale-free bound on the density of the maximum of a centered Gaussian vector. The basic bound is non-uniform, depends logarithmically on the dimension, and allows any covariance matrix. When the largest marginal variance is…

Building on the previous extensive study of Yang, Gould and the present author, we provide a more precise insight into the group-theoretical ramifications of the word problem for free idempotent generated semigroups over finite biordered…

We study fibers of word maps in finite, profinite, and residually finite groups. Our main result is that, for any word w in the free group on d generators, there exists $\epsilon > 0$ such that if G is a residually finite group with…

Balogh, Liu, Sharifzadeh and Treglown [Journal of the European Mathematical Society, 2018] recently gave a sharp count on the number of maximal sum-free subsets of $\{1, \dots, n\}$, thereby answering a question of Cameron and Erd\H{o}s. In…

Let $\mathrm{d}(A)$ be the asymptotic density (if it exists) of a sequence of integers $A$. For any real numbers $0\leq\alpha\leq\beta\leq 1$, we solve the question of the existence of a sequence $A$ of positive integers such that…

We prove that the set of orders of finite quotients of a finitely generated group has natural density 0, 1/2 or 1, and characterise when each of these cases occurs. We apply this to show that the sets of orders of various families of…

Let $S$ be a non-empty subset of a group $G$. We say $S$ is product-free if $S\cap SS=\varnothing$, and $S$ is locally maximal if whenever $T$ is product-free and $S\subseteq T$, then $S=T$. Finally $S$ fills $G$ if $G^*\subseteq S \sqcup…

The set of idempotents of any semigroup carries the structure of a biordered set, which contains a great deal of information concerning the idempotent generated subsemigroup of the semigroup in question. This leads to the construction of a…

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 $\mathbb{F}_p$ be a finite field of prime order $p$ and let $A \subset \mathbb{F}_p$ be a subset. In the dense regime when $|A| \geq \alpha p$ for some $\alpha \in (0,1)$, we determine the optimal constant $f(\alpha)$ in the inequality…