6,527 research outputs found
On sets of integers which contain no three terms in geometric progression
The problem of looking for subsets of the natural numbers which contain no
3-term arithmetic progressions has a rich history. Roth's theorem famously
shows that any such subset cannot have positive upper density. In contrast,
Rankin in 1960 suggested looking at subsets without three-term geometric
progressions, and constructed such a subset with density about 0.719. More
recently, several authors have found upper bounds for the upper density of such
sets. We significantly improve upon these bounds, and demonstrate a method of
constructing sets with a greater upper density than Rankin's set. This
construction is optimal in the sense that our method gives a way of effectively
computing the greatest possible upper density of a geometric-progression-free
set. We also show that geometric progressions in Z/nZ behave more like Roth's
theorem in that one cannot take any fixed positive proportion of the integers
modulo a sufficiently large value of n while avoiding geometric progressions.Comment: 16 page
Ramsey Theory Problems over the Integers: Avoiding Generalized Progressions
Two well studied Ramsey-theoretic problems consider subsets of the natural
numbers which either contain no three elements in arithmetic progression, or in
geometric progression. We study generalizations of this problem, by varying the
kinds of progressions to be avoided and the metrics used to evaluate the
density of the resulting subsets. One can view a 3-term arithmetic progression
as a sequence , where , a nonzero
integer. Thus avoiding three-term arithmetic progressions is equivalent to
containing no three elements of the form with , the set of integer translations. One can similarly
construct related progressions using different families of functions. We
investigate several such families, including geometric progressions ( with a natural number) and exponential progressions ().
Progression-free sets are often constructed "greedily," including every
number so long as it is not in progression with any of the previous elements.
Rankin characterized the greedy geometric-progression-free set in terms of the
greedy arithmetic set. We characterize the greedy exponential set and prove
that it has asymptotic density 1, and then discuss how the optimality of the
greedy set depends on the family of functions used to define progressions.
Traditionally, the size of a progression-free set is measured using the (upper)
asymptotic density, however we consider several different notions of density,
including the uniform and exponential densities.Comment: Version 1.0, 13 page
A problem of Rankin on sets without geometric progressions
A geometric progression of length and integer ratio is a set of numbers
of the form for some positive real number and
integer . For each integer , a greedy algorithm is used to
construct a strictly decreasing sequence of positive
real numbers with such that the set contains no geometric
progression of length and integer ratio. Moreover, is a maximal
subset of that contains no geometric progression of length and
integer ratio. It is also proved that there is a strictly increasing sequence
of positive integers with such that for all .
The set gives a new lower bound for the maximum cardinality of a
subset of the set of integers that contains no geometric
progression of length and integer ratio.Comment: 15 page
Combinatorial and Additive Number Theory Problem Sessions: '09--'19
These notes are a summary of the problem session discussions at various CANT
(Combinatorial and Additive Number Theory Conferences). Currently they include
all years from 2009 through 2019 (inclusive); the goal is to supplement this
file each year. These additions will include the problem session notes from
that year, and occasionally discussions on progress on previous problems. If
you are interested in pursuing any of these problems and want additional
information as to progress, please email the author. See
http://www.theoryofnumbers.com/ for the conference homepage.Comment: Version 3.4, 58 pages, 2 figures added 2019 problems on 5/31/2019,
fixed a few issues from some presenters 6/29/201
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