English

When Sets Can and Cannot Have MSTD Subsets

Number Theory 2018-08-23 v3

Abstract

A finite set of integers AA is a sum-dominant (also called an More Sums Than Differences or MSTD) set if A+A>AA|A+A| > |A-A|. While almost all subsets of {0,,n}\{0, \dots, n\} are not sum-dominant, interestingly a small positive percentage are. We explore sufficient conditions on infinite sets of positive integers such that there are either no sum-dominant subsets, at most finitely many sum-dominant subsets, or infinitely many sum-dominant subsets. In particular, we prove no subset of the Fibonacci numbers is a sum-dominant set, establish conditions such that solutions to a recurrence relation have only finitely many sum-dominant subsets, and show there are infinitely many sum-dominant subsets of the primes.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1608.03256,
  title  = {When Sets Can and Cannot Have MSTD Subsets},
  author = {Hung Chu and Nathan McNew and Steven J. Miller and Victor Xu and Sean Zhang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1608.03256},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

Version 2.2, 13 pages. Strengthened Theorem 1.1, fixed some typos, clarified exposition

R2 v1 2026-06-22T15:17:05.199Z