Small subset sums

Abstract

Let ||.|| be a norm in R^d whose unit ball is B. Assume that V\subset B is a finite set of cardinality n, with \sum_{v \in V} v=0. We show that for every integer k with 0 \le k \le n, there exists a subset U of V consisting of k elements such that \| \sum_{v \in U} v \| \le \lceil d/2 \rceil. We also prove that this bound is sharp in general. We improve the estimate to O(\sqrt d) for the Euclidean and the max norms. An application on vector sums in the plane is also given.

12 pages. Corrected, updated version: an important condition is added to the statement of Theorem 7