English

Variations on the Erd\H{o}s distinct-sums problem

Combinatorics 2022-10-31 v3 Number Theory

Abstract

Let {a1,...,an}\{a_1, . . . , a_n\} be a set of positive integers with a1<<ana_1 < \dots < a_n such that all 2n2^n subset sums are distinct. A famous conjecture by Erd\H{o}s states that an>c2na_n>c\cdot 2^n for some constant cc, while the best result known to date is of the form an>c2n/na_n>c\cdot 2^n/\sqrt{n}. In this paper, we weaken the condition by requiring that only sums corresponding to subsets of size smaller than or equal to λn\lambda n be distinct. For this case, we derive lower and upper bounds on the smallest possible value of ana_n.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2107.07885,
  title  = {Variations on the Erd\H{o}s distinct-sums problem},
  author = {Simone Costa and Marco Dalai and Stefano Della Fiore},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2107.07885},
  year   = {2022}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-24T04:15:49.360Z