Sum-avoiding subsets (Q2574045)

Let \(A\) be a set in any structure with an addition (here, of course,one is mainly interested in sets of integers). A subset \(S\subset A\) is called sum-avoiding, if \(s + s' \not\in A\) for any \(s, s' \in S\), \(s\neq s'\). (This is meant to distinguish it from sum-free sets which are defined by the weaker condition \(s +s' \not\in S\).) Let \(\lambda(A)\) denote the maximal cardinality of sum-avoiding subsets of \(A\), and put \(l(n) = \min\{\lambda(A) : A\subset \mathbb N, |A| = n\}.\) D. A. Klarner (unpublished) proved \(l(n) \geq (\log n)/ \log 2\) and \textit{S. L. G. Choi} [Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. (3) 23, 629--642 (1971; Zbl 0225.10058)] proved \(l(n)\ll n^{2/5+o(1)}\). The main result of this paper is to improve these estimates. Theorem. We have \[ \frac{2}{\log 3} \log n-1 < l(n)\ll e^{c\sqrt{\log n}} \] with arbitrary \(c > \sqrt {8 \log 2}.\) In Section 2 the author proves the upper estimate, and in Section 3 he gives the proof of the lower estimate and also some remarks about the possibility of improvement.