When Sets Can and Cannot Have Sum-Dominant Subsets
Hùng Việt Chu
Department of Mathematics
Washington and Lee University
Lexington, VA 24450
USA
Nathan McNew
Department of Mathematics
Towson University
Towson, MD 21252
USA
Steven J. Miller
Department of Mathematics
Williams College
Williamstown, MA 01267
USA
Victor Xu and Sean Zhang
Department of Mathematics
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
USA
Abstract:
A finite set of integers A is a sum-dominant (also called a More
Sums Than Differences or MSTD) set if |A+A| > |A−A|. While almost
all subsets of {0,...,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.
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Received June 1 2018; revised versions received August 21 2018; November
13 2018; November 16 2018. Published in Journal of Integer
Sequences, November 23 2018.
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