roots of unity

Balancing Centrifuges: Vanishing Sums of Roots of Unity

Achyut Bharadwaj, Tanmay Gupta, James Shuffelton, Toyesh Jayaswal, Matt Baker

August 2022

Sivek's Theorem, Lam and Leung's Theorem, Sylvester's Theorem, vanishing sums, roots of unity

Abstract #

The problem of balancing centrifuges is equivalent to finding sets of $k$ $n$-th roots of unity that sum to $0$. We can represent each slot in the centrifuge as an $n$-th root of unity as the slots in the centrifuge are also equally spaced and equidistant from the origin.

Acknowledgements #

Accepted for publication at the Joint Mathematics Meetings, Boston, January 4 – 7, 2023.

This work was carried out as part of a research project at PROMYS-2022. I am a grateful recipient of the Mehta Fellowship to the PROMYS programs in 2021 and 2022.

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