Constructions of Sequences of Alternating Sum and Difference Dominated Sets
Abstract
A More Sums Than Difference (MSTD) set is a finite set of integers where the cardinality of its sumset, , is greater than the cardinality of its difference set, . Since addition is commutative while subtraction isn't, it was conjectured that MSTD sets are rare. As Martin and O'Bryant proved a small (but positive) percentage are MSTD, it is natural to ask what additional properties can we impose on a chain of MSTD sets; in particular, can we construct a sequence of sets alternating between being MSTD and More Difference Than Sums (MDTS) where each properly contains the previous? We provide several such constructions; the first are trivial and proceed by filling in all missing elements from the minimum to maximum elements of , while the last is a more involved construction that prohibits adding any such elements.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2509.00792,
title = {Constructions of Sequences of Alternating Sum and Difference Dominated Sets},
author = {Yorick Herrmann and Connor Hill and Merlin Phillips and Daniel Flores and Steven J. Miller and Steven Senger},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.00792},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
10 pages