The Postage Stamp Problem and Essential Subsets in Integer Bases

Plagne recently determined the asymptotic behavior of the function E(h), which counts the maximum possible number of essential elements in an additive basis for N of order h. Here we extend his investigations by studying asymptotic behavior of the function E(h,k), which counts the maximum possible number of essential subsets of size k, in a basis of order h. For a fixed k and with h going to infinity, we show that E(h,k) = \Theta_{k} ([h^{k}/\log h]^{1/(k+1)}). The determination of a more precise asymptotic formula is shown to depend on the solution of the well-known "postage stamp problem" in finite cyclic groups. On the other hand, with h fixed and k going to infinity, we show that E(h,k) \sim (h-1) {\log k \over \log \log k}.