Sharp bound on the number of maximal sum-free subsets of integers (Q1664347)

A set \(S\) is called sum-free if the equation \(x + y = z\) has no solution in \(S\). A set \(S \subseteq \{1,2, \dots{} ,n\}\) is called a maximal sum-free subset of \(\{1,2, \dots{} ,n\}\) if it is sum-free and it is not properly contained in another sum-free subset of \(\{1,2, \dots{} ,n\}\). In this paper the authors prove that for each \(1 \le i \le 4\) there is a constant \(c_{i}\) such that for a given \(n \equiv i \bmod{4}\), the set \(\{1,2, \ldots,n\}\) contains \((c_{i} + o(1))2^{n/4}\) maximal sum-free sets as \(n \rightarrow \infty\). The proof is based on graph theoretic tools; in particular, the following container type theorem of \textit{B. Green} [Bull. Lond. Math. Soc. 36, 769--778 (2004; Zbl 1074.11013)]. There exist a family \(F\) of subsets of \(\{1,2, \dots{} ,n\}\) such that every member of \(F\) has at most \(o(n^{2})\) Schur triples as \(n \rightarrow \infty\). Moreover, if \(S \subseteq \{1,2, \dots{} ,n\}\) is sum-free, then \(S\) is contained in some member of \(F\). Furthermore, \(F\) has size \(2^{o(n)}\) and every member of \(F\) has size at most \((1/2 + o(1))n\) as \(n \rightarrow \infty\). On the other hand, the authors investigate similar problems for abelian groups. Namely, they prove that the number of maximal sum-free subsets of an abelian group \(G\) of order \(n\) is at most \(3^{\mu(G)/3+o(n)}\) as \(n \rightarrow \infty\), where \(\mu(G)\) is the size of the largest sum-free subset of \(G\). Moreover, they show that if \(n\) is divisible by 3, but not divisible by a prime \(p\) with \(p \equiv 2 \pmod{3}\), then the number of maximal sum-free subsets of an abelian group \(G\) of order \(n\) is at least \(2^{(\mu(G)-3)/2}\). Furthermore, they prove that the number of maximal sum-free subsets of \(\mathbb{Z}_{2}^{k}\) is \(2^{(1+o(1))\mu(\mathbb{Z}_{2}^{k})/2}\) as \(k \rightarrow \infty\) and the number of maximal sum-free subsets of \(\mathbb{Z}_{7}^{k}\) is at least \(2^{\mu(\mathbb{Z}_{7}^{k})/2-1}\). Finally, they obtain that the number of maximal sum-free subsets of \(\mathbb{Z}_{p}\) is between \(1.1^{p-o(p)}\) and \(1.13^{p+o(p)}\) as \(p \rightarrow \infty\), where \(p\) is a prime.