Faithful Decomposition of Rationals

Abstract

If an irreducible fraction $\frac mn>0$ can be decomposed into the sum of several irreducible proper fractions with different denominators, and the positive number smaller than $\frac mn$ in fractional ideal $\frac 1n\mathbb Z$ can not be obtained by replacing some numerator with smaller non-negative integers, then the decomposition is said to be faithful. For $t\in\mathbb Z$, we prove that the length of faithful decomposition of an irreducible fraction $\frac mn$ with $2\le t\le\frac mn<t+1$ is at least $t+2$. In addition, we show a faithful decomposition of rationals consisting only of unit fractions except for one term. And we write $\frac 4n$ as a faithful decomposition with three fractions at most one non-unit fraction.