A Note on the Alon-Kleitman Argument for Sum-free Subset Theorem


Abstract in English

In 1990, Alon and Kleitman proposed an argument for the sum-free subset problem: every set of n nonzero elements of a finite Abelian group contains a sum-free subset A of size |A|>frac{2}{7}n. In this note, we show that the argument confused two different randomness. It applies only to the finite Abelian group G = (Z/pZ)^s where p is a prime. For the general case, the problem remains open.

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