An Erdős-Fuchs theorem for ordered representation functions (Q2240495)

Let \(k \geq 2\) be a positive integer. In this paper, the authors study concentration results for the ordered representation functions \(r_k^{\leq}(\mathcal{A}, n)=\sharp\{(a_1\leq \cdots \leq a_k)\in \mathcal{A}^k: a_1+\cdots+a_k=n\}\) and \(r_k^{<}(\mathcal{A},n)=\sharp\{(a_1<\cdots <a_k)\in \mathcal{A}^k: a_1+\cdots+a_k=n\}\) for any infinite set of non-negative integers \(\mathcal{A}\). The main theorem is an Erdős-Fuchs-type result for both functions: for any \(c>0\) and \(\star\in \{\leq,<\}\) they show that \(\sum\limits_{j=0}^n(r^{\star}(\mathcal{A},j)-c)=o(n^{1/4}\log^{-1/2}n)\) is not possible. They also show that the mean squared error \(E_{k,c}^{\star}(\mathcal{A},n)=\frac{1}{n}\sum\limits_{j=0}^n(r^{\star}(\mathcal{A},j)-c)^2\) satisfies \(\lim \sup_{n\rightarrow \infty}E_{k,c}^{\star}(\mathcal{A},n)>0\). These nice results extend two theorems for the nonordered representation function proved by \textit{P. Erdős} and \textit{W. H. J. Fuchs} in the case of \(k=2\) [J. Lond. Math. Soc. 31, 67--73 (1956; Zbl 0070.04104)].