Related papers: The structure of large sum-free sets in $\mathbb{F…

Let $p$ be a prime number with $p\equiv 2\pmod{3}$ and let $n\ge 1$ be a dimension. It is known that a sum-free subset of ${\mathbb F}_p^n$ can have at most the size $\frac13(p+1)p^{n-1}$ and that, up to automorphisms of ${\mathbb F}_p^n$,…

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 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…

A set of integers is called sum-free if it contains no triple $(x,y,z)$ of not necessarily distinct elements with $x+y=z$. In this paper, we provide a structural characterisation of sum-free subsets of $\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$ of density at least…

Given $A$ a set of $N$ positive integers, an old question in additive combinatorics asks that whether $A$ contains a sum-free subset of size at least $N/3+\omega(N)$ for some increasing unbounded function $\omega$. The question is generally…

A set of integers is sum-free if it contains no solution to the equation $x+y=z$. We study sum-free subsets of the set of integers $[n]=\{1,\ldots,n\}$ for which the integer $2n+1$ cannot be represented as a sum of their elements. We prove…

We study subsets of $\mathbb{F}_p^n$ that do not contain progressions of length $k$. We denote by $r_k(\mathbb{F}_p^n)$ the cardinality of such subsets containing a maximal number of elements. In this paper we focus on the case $k=p$ and…

Answering a question of Leo Versteegen, we prove that for $n\ge 3$ every sum-free set $A\subseteq\mathbb{F}_5^n$ with $|A|\ge 28\cdot 5^{n-3}$ is either contained in the union of two parallel hyperplanes, or isomorphic to $\Lambda\times…

Let $A \subset \mathbb{Z}_{>0}$ of size $n$. It is conjectured that for any $C >0$ and $n$ large enough that $A$ contains a sum-free subset of size at least $n/3 +C$. We study this problem and find an alternate proof of Bourgain's result…

A tri-colored sum-free set in an abelian group $H$ is a collection of ordered triples in $H^3$, $\{(a_i,b_i,c_i)\}_{i=1}^m$, such that the equation $a_i+b_j+c_k=0$ holds if and only if $i=j=k$. Using a variant of the lemma introduced by…

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 $\mathcal{L}$. We determine the precise size of the largest $\mathcal{L}$-free subset of $[n]$ for…

Let $A$ be a subset of a finite field $\mathbb{F}$. When $\mathbb{F}$ has prime order, we show that there is an absolute constant $c > 0$ such that, if $A$ is both sum-free and equal to the set of its multiplicative inverses, then $|A| <…

Given a set $A \subseteq \mathbb{F}_p^n$, what conditions does one need to guarantee that iterated sumsets of the form $A+\cdots+A$ expand quickly (say, within $O(p)$ terms) to the whole space? When only the size of $A$ is known, such…

We classify the sum-free subsets of ${\mathbb F}_3^n$ whose density exceeds $\frac16$. This yields a resolution of Vsevolod Lev's periodicity conjecture, which asserts that if a sum-free subset ${A\subseteq {\mathbb F}_3^n}$ is maximal with…

Let $\mathbb{F}_p$ be the field of a prime order $p.$ It is known that for any integer $N\in [1,p]$ one can construct a subset $A\subset\mathbb{F}_p$ with $|A|= N$ such that $$ \max\{|A+A|, |AA|\}\ll p^{1/2}|A|^{1/2}. $$ In the present…

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…

Cameron and Erd\H{o}s raised the question of how many maximal sum-free sets there are in $\{1, \dots , n\}$, giving a lower bound of $2^{\lfloor n/4 \rfloor }$. In this paper we prove that there are in fact at most $2^{(1/4+o(1))n}$ maximal…

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…

A set $B$ is said to be \emph{sum-free} if there are no $x,y,z\in B$ with $x+y=z$. We show that there exists a constant $c>0$ such that any set $A$ of $n$ integers contains a sum-free subset $A'$ of size $|A'|\geqslant n/3+c\log \log n$.…

An old problem of Moser asks: how large of a union-free subfamily does every family of m sets have? A family of sets is called union-free if there are no three distinct sets in the family such that the union of two of the sets is equal to…