Subset and subsequence sums with bounded numbers of terms (Q6943829)

Let \(S\) be a finite sequence of integers and \(|S|\) the length of \(S\). If the terms of \(S\) are pairwise distinct, we call \(S\) a set. Let \(\sigma(S)\) denote the sum of all the elements of \(S\). Let \(\alpha\) and \(\beta\) be nonnegative integers such that \(\alpha+\beta \leq |S|\). Let \N\[\N\Sigma_{\alpha}^{\beta}(S)=\{\sigma(T)\mid T \mbox{ is a subsequence of } S \mbox{ with } \alpha \leq |T|\leq |S|-\beta \}.\N\]\NThe direct problem of \(\Sigma_{\alpha}^{\beta}(S)\) is to estimate the lower bound for \(|\Sigma_{\alpha}^{\beta}(S)|\), and the associate inverse problem is to characterize the sequence \(S\) for which \(|\Sigma_{\alpha}^{\beta}(S)|\) achieves the optimal lower bound.\N\NIn this paper under review, the authors obtain some new results on the direct problems and the inverse problems of \(\Sigma_{\alpha}^{\beta}(S)\) when \(S\) is a set of integers (\(S\) is a sequence of integers, respectively). Writing the conclusions of the paper can be quite tedious, so we omit the details here. Most of the proofs presented in this paper are original. The results for the generalized \(h\)-fold sumset [\textit{Q.-H. Yang} and \textit{Y.-G. Chen}, Eur. J. Comb. 47, 103--114 (2015; Zbl 1448.11025)] are used in the proofs. Two open problems of \textit{J. Bhanja} and \textit{R. K. Pandey} [C. R., Math., Acad. Sci. Paris 360, 1099--1111 (2022; Zbl 1514.11013)] are solved in this paper.