The first distribution invariant of the Johnson-scheme (Q757446)

It is shown that the invariant of the title equals \(\binom{n-1}{d-1}\), for the Johnson scheme \(J(n,d)\), for n sufficiently large. This amounts to the following. If \(a_ 1,...,a_ n\in {\mathbb{R}}\) satisfy \(\sum^{n}_{i=1}a_ i=0\) and \(\sum_{i\in T}a_ i\neq 0\) for every d-subset T of \(\{1,2,...,n\}\), then there exist at least \(N=\binom{n- 1}{d-1}\) d-subsets giving positive sums. This holds for \(2d<n\) and n sufficiently large, in particular for \(n\geq 6\) if \(d=2\), for \(n\geq 93\) if \(d=3\), for \(n\geq f(d)\) if \(d>3\), with explicitly given f(d). However, \(N=\binom{2d-1}{d-1}\) for \(n=2d+1\).