Product-free subsets of groups, then and now

Abstract

A subset of a group is product-free if it does not contain elements a, b, c such that ab = c. We review progress on the problem of determining the size of the largest product-free subset of an arbitrary finite group, including a lower bound due to the author, and a recent upper bound due to Gowers. The bound of Gowers is more general; it allows three different sets A, B, C such that one cannot solve ab = c with a in A, b in B, c in C. We exhibit a refinement of the lower bound construction which shows that for this broader question, the bound of Gowers is essentially optimal.