Sharp bound for the Erd\H{o}s-Straus non-averaging set problem
Combinatorics
2025-09-11 v2 Number Theory
Abstract
A set of integers is non-averaging if there is no element in which can be written as an average of a subset of not containing . We show that the largest non-averaging subset of has size , thus solving the Erd\H{o}s-Straus problem. We also determine the largest size of a non-averaging set in a -dimensional box for any fixed . Our main tool includes the structure theorem for the set of subset sums due to Conlon, Fox and the first author, together with a result about the structure of a point set in nearly convex position.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2410.14624,
title = {Sharp bound for the Erd\H{o}s-Straus non-averaging set problem},
author = {Huy Tuan Pham and Dmitrii Zakharov},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2410.14624},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
Revised version, 20 pages