Sum-free sets of integers with a forbidden sum

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Publication:4627481




Abstract: 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 a bound of O(2n/3) on the number of these sets, which matches, up to a multiplicative constant, the lower bound obtained by considering all subsets of Bn=lceilfrac23(n+1)ceil,ldots,n. A main ingredient in the proof is a stability theorem saying that if a subset of [n] of size close to |Bn| contains only a few subsets that contradict the sum-freeness or the forbidden sum, then it is almost contained in Bn. Our results are motivated by the question of counting symmetric complete sum-free subsets of cyclic groups of prime order. The proofs involve Freiman's 3k4 theorem, Green's arithmetic removal lemma, and structural results on independent sets in hypergraphs.









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