On an inverse problem in additive number theory

Abstract

For a set $A$, let $P(A)$ be the set of all finite subset sums of $A$. In this paper, for a sequence of integers $B=\{1<b_1<b_2<\cdots\}$ and $3b_1+5\leq b_2\leq 6b_1+10$, we determine the critical value for $b_3$ such that there exists an infinite sequence $A$ of positive integers for which $P(A)=\mathbb{N}\setminus B$. This result shows that we partially solve the problem of Fang and Fang [`On an inverse problem in additive number theory', Acta Math. Hungar. 158(2019), 36-39].